Happenstance
by The Lady Mage
Summary: What if Chakotay and Seven hadn't gone to Ledos for that conference? What if they had traded places to go on a different mission? What could be worse than being stuck with the Ventu for a long weekend? Or better? C/7 WIP
1. Chapter 1

**Greetings from The Lady Mage! Welcome to Chapter One of Happenstance! I was watching Natural Law again the other day for a DIFFERENT idea I haven't typed up yet, and I wondered what would have or could have happened if Chakotay and Seven HADN'T gone together to Ledos- but to somewhere else completely? Well, here's one idea, anyway! Thanks so much to Scifiromance for letting me tell her a story and being an awesome sounding board! You make all the difference, chica! XOXO**

 **I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy writing!**

 **~LM**

 **Obligatory Legalities: I do not own the characters or the ship names, but this plot is mine.**

 **XXX**

 _Happenstance: noun: 1. A chance happening or event. 2. Coincidence._

 **XXX**

Cold.

Wet.

Dark.

Consciousness was slow to return to her, teasing her with the temptation of awareness. Something was cold and wet down her back, soaking into her biosuit and seemingly into her skin beneath it. Whether it was dark or light she wasn't sure- were her eyes even open? Somewhere to her side was a quiet trickling sound, like a faucet left dripping. The sound and the cold and the wet finally came together in her mind enough to slowly begin rousing her. She lifted a wet hand up and rubbed it down her face, feeling along her ocular implant and then her starburst, for a disorienting second or two expecting to feel an eyepiece and the auditory transceiver that used to cover her ear.

Blinking her eyes open did little for her. Wherever she was, light wasn't. There wasn't one stray lumin anywhere to help her cybernetic eye make out shapes in the complete dark. Reaching her hands out in front of her to get her bearings, they quickly came in contact with something cold and smooth above her. With a frown, she felt out to either side of her. Similarly, something metallic and cold flanked her. Her heart rate began to speed up. She lifted her cybernetic leg and kicked out below her. More metal. A raised arm over her head also hit a barrier. She was completely boxed in. Old anxieties, pushed to the far corners of her mind, began to bleed back to the forefront. She was alone- totally alone, secluded, isolated, left...lost.

And it was dark.

A rush of panic bloomed across her head, colder than the liquid pooled beneath her, washing icy black rivers down her spine, flowing into cold-numbed fingertips and toes, coming back together to coil into a ball of writhing nausea in her belly, and choking her breath off in her throat. She swung her arms out, beating against the walls on either side of her, pulling her legs up to kick at the ceiling above her, rolling over and feeling along the walls for any sign of defect- any viable means of escape. Hyperventilating and choking on the meager contents left in her stomach that were trying to flee the snake of anxiety inside her, she heard the wall to her right groan. She turned on her side and drew her knees up to her chest, then pushed against the wall with all her might.

' _Out! Out! Let me out!_ '

With a sharp bark of noise, the screech of metal rubbing against metal, and the loud crash of whatever it was boxing her in toppling over, light poured over her. The glow shining from the emergency lights was meager, but she drank it in like she was dying of thirst for it, scrambling out of the hole she'd been buried in. She was in the back of the shuttle, half submerged and flooded, now perched on the edge of the row of footlockers that had trapped her beneath the long bench she must have been flung under in the crash. Ragged, croaking breaths shook her frame as much as the cold as she struggled to control her breathing and quell the slithering serpent trying to empty her insides.

' _What.. happened..?_ ' With an audible gulp, she turned to take in the destruction around her. Part of the hull was ripped open, a jagged scar big enough to stick her arm through that ran across the top of the shuttle from one side to the other, let in a little light from whatever moon circled the planet at night, though no stars could be seen. The lockers that had been attached to the walls had been ripped free, spilling their contents across the compartment, half of which were now floating in the two feet of water on the starboard side. She let out one last sigh, her breath puffing out in a cloud of steam in the cold air. Wherever they were, at least the air was breathable.

A strangled groan sounded from the open, broken door to the cockpit, startling her so deeply that she jerked around to focus her attention on the pitch black of the room ahead of her. 'Chakotay.' her mind filled in for her, urging her to move. ' _Not alone.._ ' She scrambled from the edge of the lockers up to the cockpit doors. Her eyes strained to pull in enough illumination to show her the contents of the room, but there just wasn't enough. With a groan of impatience, she turned back to the wreckage behind her and began to shove the footlockers over to give her access to their doors.

It wasn't until she managed to rip open the third door that she found a small emergency lantern. She yanked the small silver item out of the broken footlocker door, catching her hand on a particularly jagged bit of metal. Her sigh of relief became a hiss of pain as blood began to dribble down the back of her hand, coating her fingers and running across the lantern they held. An old, mumbled curse- its language of origin or species of origin either long forgotten or simply deemed irrelevant- slipped past her lips as she examined the long cut.

Another pained sound came from the cockpit. Clapping her uninjured hand over the cut to stem the flow of blood, she hurried back into the cockpit to inspect the damage. Flipping the switch on the lantern with her thumb of her injured hand revealed as much wreckage as in the aft. Whatever was attached to the walls had either come open or flown off completely. In the middle of the mess lay Chakotay, his right leg and arm laying at odd angles.

Seven knelt at his side, reaching out and gently turning his face up for inspection. He had a cut across his forehead that extended down across the bridge of his nose before curling back like a fish hook and ending at the peak of his cupid's bow. The wound was shallow, superficial, and already scabbing over. His arm and leg, though, were obviously broken. She hoped that nothing else was.

Chakotay's brow furrowed, his head turning back the way it had been as his eyes blinked open. With a grunt of pain, he tried to lean up.

"Don't move." Seven said, her voice a hoarse whisper, as she gently held him down.

"Seven?" he groaned, turning his head to blink up at her, his eyes not totally focused. "We.."

"We crashed.. Somewhere.." she said. She coughed to clear her throat before continuing. "The shuttle is.. a lost cause. We are stranded."

"I managed.." he grunted, bringing his good arm up to place his hand over her's on his chest. "..to launch a.. beacon. Are we.. in the.. singularity?" His eyes finally focused in the dark, zeroing in on her face.

"I do not know." Seven whispered, looking out the windscreen. It was too dark to make out anything of significance- water ahead, a forest across, maybe?

"Are you okay? You're.. crying."

She yanked her hands back from him, rubbing them down her wet cheeks, erasing the last evidence of her panic attack. "We are in water. It must have splashed on my face when I was retrieving this lantern."

He decided to let that one slide. "You didn't happen to find a med kit.. while you were looking.." His whole body tensed as he tried to move his injured arm, eyes squeezing shut as he let out a grunt of pain through clenched teeth. "Yep- that's broken."

"Quite." she agreed, turning back to the aft. "I'll find a med kit." She stalked back down to the footlockers, trying to keep from shivering in the cold, and began to rummage.

"Do you know where we are?" Chakotay called after her, another hiss of pain just audible as he shifted. "Or where we landed?"

"No." she answered simply, fishing her hand down into the black depths of the last locker, and coming back empty-handed. With an annoyed sigh, she moved forward to slosh through the cold water to the line of compartments shoved up against the closed hatch. "I've only been conscious for about twenty minutes."

She heard him let out an irritated sigh. "Lovely. At least we are alive."

 **XXX**

"It's a four day conference." Seven could feel the muscle tightening in her jaw as the Doctor walked a circle around her. "The subject of which is Warp Field Dynamics."

The Doctor stopped in front of her, an incredulous look on his face. "And you would rather go on an away mission to take readings on a nebula than attend? Seven, you'd be the star of the conference! Think of how much more knowledge of the subject material you would have over-"

"I would be required to perform a presentation on the specifics of Voyager's warp core. I felt it would be more appropriate for Lieutenant Torres to attend as she is the Chief Engineer."

"Oh, Seven," said the Doctor, crossing his arms and bringing one hand up to cup his chin. "We both know that you are just as familiar with all the ins and outs of Voyager's systems than she is." He blew out a holographic breath. "Something is bothering you, isn't it."

Seven scowled, not quite meeting his eyes. "Of course not. If I did not go on this mission, then Lieutenant Paris would be going in my stead, and he would be away from his pregnant wife for a week. It would be more prudent that he accompany her than to be away from her for so long in her condition."

A not quite so convinced twinkle appeared in the Doctor's brown eyes. "So it was your human compassion that brought you to this course of action... and not a little bit of stage fright at having to make a speech in front of all those people...?"

Her emotionless mask wavered for a second. "While I admit that I do not.. relish.. the idea of speaking in front of so many people, I do find this particular nebula interesting.. and worthy of inspection.." Her eyes flicked to his, then back to the glass separating sickbay from the office.

"I see." he said, cutting her a break and letting it go. He turned back to his tray of instruments to begin her physical, lifting the medical tricorder into one holographic hand. "And who will you be accompanying on this mission?"

"..Commander Chakotay." The Doctor fumbled the tricorder, bouncing it off his knee but missing it with his other hand. Seven's enhanced arm shot out, plucking the medical instrument from the air and holding it out to him. "Doctor?"

Voyager's trusty EMH turned back to face her, gently taking his tricorder from her hand with a slight frown. "I'm sorry, Seven, but I cannot clear you for this mission."

The blonde ex-drone caught her jaw before it could pop open. "Why?" she asked, a million scenarios going through her head. Was it her coritcal node again? Did he see something wrong with her that she didn't? Lieutenant Torres would be so upset with her that Tom would have to leave, and the animosity that had relaxed away from their interactions as of late would be back in full force now. Tom would be irritated to lose on his shore leave with his wife- would that hang over their heads every time she must work with him on navigational issues? The Captain would be ecstatic that Seven could represent them at the conference- whether Seven wanted to go or not. The conference! She would have to make a long speech in front of an excess of seven thousand people from Ledos all the way back to Gerilus Prime! Her jaw clenched.

"Seven, we both know what happened the last time," The Doctor began quietly, his eyes softening with worry as he watched the scant emotions flit over Seven's face at his refusal. "-that you were alone with Chakotay- even a holographic Chakotay. Your cortical node couldn't handle another relapse, and-"

Seven nearly stamped her foot, instantly irritated. "You think that I am going on this away mission to be alone with-"

"No! No!" the Doctor cut her off, "But you will be in close quarters with him, and we don't know if that will affect your failsafe or not." He shook his head. "If it triggers, and you aren't on Voyager where I can help you-"

"Irrelevant! I am in complete control of-"

"No, you're not." The Doctor turned back to the tray and set the tricorder on it. He wouldn't need to carry out an away mission physical today. "I'm afraid that if you don't allow me to remove the failsafe device then I will have to report to the Captain that you are unfit to make this away mission, and you will have to be reassigned to Ledos."

"Doctor-"

"That's the deal, Seven." he glanced at her over his shoulder. There was no missing the touch of worry in her eyes. He turned back, taking her forearms in his hands in a reassuring gesture. "I've been studying the programming in your failsafe in more detail lately, hoping you would eventually come to a change of heart. I believe I can totally reconfigure the micro-circuitry in a single procedure that would only last an hour. Your recovery would be just as fast- you'd wake up after an hour refreshed and ready to go."

"But burdened with human emotions!" argued the blonde, a scowl drawing her brows down.

"Yes, the full range- everything from a hearty belly laugh to a good cry- but I'd hardly call it a burden." he said with a reassuring smile. "We aren't changing your personality, Seven. You will still be you- in fact, you will be the you that you would have been if Icheb had never had to donate his node."

Seven sighed, relaxing somewhat. "You are.. sure?"

"I am certain." affirmed the Doctor. "Trust me- your personality is too strong for a little bit of circuitry to tamp down."

Which was the lesser of two evils? Seven's frown temporarily deepened. "When would you be able to perform the surgery?"

"Today, if you like. You don't leave until tomorrow afternoon, so that gives you ample time to recover and regenerate." He smiled. "Is that a yes?"

Another heavy sigh blew out her nose as she gave him one nod. "Yes."

 **XXX**

When Seven walked into the shuttle bay the next afternoon- her bag slung over one shoulder and her small case with her portable regeneration unit and power panel in one hand- she was in a good mood. In fact, she couldn't remember when she had felt this.. at ease before. To quote Lieutenant Paris, she had a definite spring in her step today. She had finished a twelve hour regeneration cycle that morning after her visit with the Doctor, changed into her favorite blue biosuit, and had thoroughly enjoyed the plate of chadrikab and egg substitute that Neelix had set before her in the mess hall. Crewman Celes had been awaiting her instructions for the astrometrics lab for the duration of her absence, and had been especially self-assured in her ability to perform them. Of course, the fact that Harry Kim had been in there to offer his assistance helped the young Bajoran. All the better, as far as Seven was concerned.

With her good mood, she quickly packed her things into the storage locker on the shuttle they would be taking to study the nebula, and began going over the pre-launch checks while she waited for the Commander to join her to begin their mission. Her fingers danced across the consoles as she flit from one to the other, doing to work of three people as she prepared the shuttle, all with a slight smile on her face. Maybe this away mission would be a good one.

* * *

When Chakotay walked into the shuttle bay the next afternoon- his hastily packed bag slung over his shoulder, and a small overnight bag in one hand- he was in a tense mood. In fact, he couldn't remember when he had felt this.. pensive before. To quote Lieutenant Paris, he was definitely on tenterhooks today. His morning hadn't been bad- in fact, he'd slept well, had time to quickly throw his bag together, and had enjoyed a cup of tea with a delicious plate of replicated eggs and waffles for breakfast. Lieutenant Tuvok had been his cordial Vulcan self when given the duty rosters for the week he would be gone, and had even wished him well. Of course, he had already made up the schedule himself- all Tuvok would have to do would be to see it implemented. All the better, as far as the commander was concerned.

Still a touch anxious, he quickly walked up towards the hatch to the tiny aft compartment of the shuttle. As he got closer, he paused, his ears picking up a new sound. The sound was soft, melodic, and he instantly recognized to tune as one of his favorites. With a curious smile, he rounded the open hatch and peered into the open shuttle.

Seven was sitting at the helm, her attention on the lit console before her as she ran the pre-launch checks. Her foot slowly tapped out a rhythm as she softly hummed her tune. Chakotay paused to watch her for a moment, taking in the relaxed posture as she sat, the soft smile playing at her lips as she continued the melody he had heard all his young life from the musical jewelry box his mother had coveted. He hadn't really meant to be silent as he walked up the ramp- merely to be quiet to hear her perfect-pitch humming. None the less, when he slid his bag down off his shoulder to tuck into the storage locker, Seven gasped and whipped around in her chair.

"You're in a good mood I see." Chakotay said, his smile widening on his face.

The blonde's face drew into a confused scowl, her nose scrunching. "Commander?"

The Commander's grin turned into a smirk as he chuckled. He really had snuck up on her. "You were humming. I like that tune. Schumann?"

Seven jolted, spinning back around to the console so that she no longer faced Chakotay, feeling the blush begin to draw up her neck to flame her cheeks. How could she not realize she was humming the song that the Commander's holographic double had asked her to play for him so many weeks ago? "I'm sorry, Commander, I didn't realize."

"Sorry? What are you sorry for?" he chuckled again at her reaction. Was she embarrassed at having been caught humming? "It's one of my favorites. We can listen to it when we take off if you like." She made a soft strangled sound in her throat that he just barely caught. ' _Curious._ ' A large portion of the tension he had felt about this mission had been in his partner for the trip. He wasn't sure why he had started trying to reach out to the ex-drone a few months ago- asking her to accompany him to Neelix's cooking class, an invitation to join him and the other bridge crew members to Sandrine's here and there, a turned down challenge at hoverball on the holodeck- but she had for a while been slowly responding to it. Once in a while he could pluck a half-smile from her lips, or catch a softening twinkle in her bright blue eyes.

That is, until about a month back when they had been stuck traversing that subspace munitions range. Tempers had flared all over the ship that week as they tried to navigate through all the warheads that were unknowingly being sent their way, and though he personally had not taken his out on Seven in any way, she had withdrawn from him. Where before he could have spoken to her in the astrometrics lab for a good twenty minutes when he went after the daily report, now she unofficially turned him out the door within five. Sometimes she looked stricken when she first saw him, like a wounded dog looks at the master that beat him. He didn't understand why, but hadn't done much lately to broach the chasm of space between them.

Seeing her smiling as she hummed to herself had lifted his spirits. Perhaps this wouldn't be an awkwardly silent trip where he struggled to reach her and she struggled to avoid him in quarters as small as a bedroom for seven days. Maybe this was just what he needed to bridge that gap.

Chakotay took a seat at tactical, looking over the statistics scrolling across the screen from Seven's previous work. He glanced over at the blonde in time to catch her glance back at him. She quickly swiveled back to the console beside her, though he could see from the words on his screen that she had already prepared it for flight. "So.." he began casually, watching her a little closer. "Where did you hear that tune?"

"..Commander?"

"Schumann. I thought you were more of a.. Listz fan."

Any hope she had of her blush going away was dashed as flashes of her time spent in the holodeck scrolled through her head- her sitting at the piano with the holographic version of Chakotay, preparing dinner with him chopping vegetables under her watchful eye. "I.." she began, clearing her throat so that her mortification didn't show in her voice. "I must have heard it in sickbay. The Doctor listens to more than just opera now and then."

"Oh, he does?" Chakotay gently prompted. "I've never heard him play this particular piece befo-"

"You're both here early?" Kathryn appeared at the hatch, arms crossed but with an amused smile on her face as she walked into the aft. "And already finishing up the pre-flights?" She pretended to be stern. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were just itching to get off my ship!"

B'Elanna was right behind her, looking down at the storage locker with a laugh. Seven's two cases were settled neatly in their cubby; Chakotay's two bags were squashed together and sideways, the strap to his overnight bag hanging out to dangle above the floor. "You packed light, I see." she said to Chakotay. "I bet one of those is full of PADDs."

The commander chuckled with a nod. "You know me too well. I've got the Doctor's holocamera, too. He begged me to take a couple of shots of the nebula for his next slideshow."

"We didn't interrupt anything, did we?" Kathryn asked with a smile.

"Oh, no, Captain." said Chakotay. "I was just asking Seven where she had heard a-"

Seven spun around her chair, shooting up to stand beside her pseudo-mother. " **Captain** , how are you?"

Kathryn was a little taken aback at the abruptness of her pupil, but also quite pleased. It looked like the Doctor's social lessons were paying off. She smiled at Seven, reaching out and patting her arm. "I'm just fine, Seven. Thank you for asking."

"You are welcome, Captain." said Seven. She turned her eyes to B'Elanna. "Lieutenant, I hope you are well."

B'Elanna cracked a half smile, coming up to stand behind Chakotay's chair across from where Seven stood. "Well, besides the fact that you stuck me with making a speech in front of seven thousand people at the conference you backed out of.."

The blonde blanched, stopping herself from backing up a step. She could not stop her human hand from coming up to clutch across her belly in the instant anxiety that washed over her like ice water. Recently, she had began enjoying the lessening tension that seemed to sit between herself and the half-Klingon- their interactions leaning more towards a mutual respect or maybe budding friendship over the last several months. "Lieutenant, that was not my intentio-"

The half-Klingon cracked a bigger smile, reaching out and putting her hand over Seven's pale forearm. "Calm down, Seven. I was only kidding." she said gently. "Actually, I'm great. Since you traded places with Tom, he and I get to spend four days together on Ledos. The speech is a small price to pay for that!" A happy chuckle left her lips. "I could just about kiss you for it.. but I think I'll just hug you instead." And with that, she tugged Seven closer to her, drawing her in for a brief friendly squeeze.

Seven awkwardly pat B'Elanna's back before the pregnant woman would release her, and then she made for the seat by the helm before anyone else could decide to follow the half-Klingon's example. The Doctor had explained that her emotions would come back to her slowly, and that she may bumble a little more than usual as she became used to how they affected her. In that moment, she thought him very wrong as pins and needles pricked the backs of her eyes. She blinked hard to ensure her lacrimal glands did not betray her. Why should B'Elanna giving her a hug make her cry? She had not injured her, nor had she said anything to hurt Seven's feelings. She supposed it was something she would have to figure out later- alone.

Before anyone else could speak, Tom decided to make an appearance, walking up the hatch to stand beside B'Elanna. "There you are." he said to her, putting an arm around her shoulder. "You're not abandoning me for this nebula, are you?"

"Of course not." answered B'Elanna. "Just seeing Chakotay and Seven off."

"Oh, right." said Tom, turning his attention to the blonde ex-drone. "Hey, thanks for trading me places, Sister." He glanced at Chakotay. "Not that we wouldn't have had fun, too, Chief."

"Nah, go enjoy your babymoon." laughed the Commander. Kathryn chuckled behind her hand.

Seven raised one eyebrow. "Babymoon?"

"Think of it as a last hurrah before the baby is born." explained Kathryn. "Life changes quite a bit once you add children to it."

"Oh." was all Seven could manage, turning back to the console.

"Anyway," said the Captain. "We had better let you go. That nebula won't observe itself."

 **XXX**

"We should be coming up on the nebula any second now." Chakotay said, dialing the last couple of commands into the helm to turn them so many degrees starboard. Suddenly, through the windscreen, the swirling purple, pink, and orange nebula began to come into view. "..Right there."

Seven's eyes widened from the opps, her lips parting slightly as she took in the mesmerizing sight. "It is.." she murmured quietly, "Beautiful."

A little surprised by the unusual comment, Chakotay glanced back at the blonde. Her whole body was rigid but relaxed, her facial expression a mixture of surprise and awe. Her eyes wide and bright, and the corners of her mouth had turned up in a pleased smile. " _Si_ , Seven." he agreed, committing her expression to memory. Her azure orbs flicked from the nebula to his face, then down to her console shyly as a blush pinkened her cheeks. He smirked, turning back to his own console. "Readings?"

"Typical levels of both hydrogen and helium." she reported quietly. "It is most definitely a supernova remnant caused by a white dwarf." She glanced up out of the windscreen again. "There is another star on the other side of the nebula- that is likely the source of accretion. It should reach critical mass within another thousand years."

"Shockwave?"

"Gone." Seven pulled up another set of calculations. "Going by the rate of speed.. I would say that this nebula is roughly thirty-five thousand years old. The gas and residual debris are no longer moving outward. Save for a few sluggish chemical reactions in the cloud, it is mostly inert."

"Moving forward then." said Chakotay, tapping in another series of commands before flipping the shuttle onto autopilot. "Set your scanners to run continuously just in case, then let's get some lunch."

"Yes, Commander."

Chakotay rolled his eyes. "Chakotay." he corrected, his voice a touch sing-song. He'd corrected her at least a dozen times over the past two days, his success rate at having her drop rank still hit or miss. "It is only you and I on this shuttle." He caught her blush again and smiled as he walked to her station. "Do you think I'm so old that I will forget my own rank?"

Seven paled. "What? No! I-"

His hand shot out, his palm cupping over the metal-laced hand on the console, thumb brushing the back of her knuckles. "Seven, I'm only teasing." he said with a chuckle. "It's okay." Her face went from pale to pink as she blushed again, turning her head and body to flee, slipping into the aft. He was beginning to like a bit of pink to her cheeks, he thought to himself as he followed.

They had just been finishing up the mushroom soup and cheese sandwiches she had replicated for them, sitting together on the bench as they ate in comfortable silence, when the sensors began pinging. Seven lifted one eyebrow curiously, setting her plate and bowl to the side before hopping up into the cockpit. Chakotay followed her shortly after, placing their dishes in the recycler on his way back up front.

"What is it?" he asked, taking his place back at helm.

"There's.. some kind of radiation." Seven's fingers were nearly a blur across her console keys. "Something is happening inside the nebula."

"Radiation?" he glanced back at her face, but she was looking past him out of the windscreen, her eyes as large as dinner plates and skin gone ashen. He whipped back around in time to see a bright purple shockwave spreading out of the nebula, and heading right for them. "Shields!" The console beside him popped loudly, showering sparks across his body as the wave reached them. "Damnit! Sensors?!"

"I am attempting to-" Seven was thrown from her chair as the shuttle shook and shivered, cresting a wave of radiation that tossed them around like a toy sailboat at sea. The blonde sprawled across the floor, her momentum rolling her hard against the far bulkhead. A loud, pained grunt was pushed past her lips as her head impacted.

"Seven?!" the Commander left his console to check on the injured blonde, grabbing her arm and rolling her onto her back. The side of her face was bloody from a cut above her cybernetic eye. "Seven?" The ex-drone let out a soft groan; the commander gently pat her cheek to rouse her. "Seven, wake up!" Another soft pained sound came from the blonde's throat before her eyes fluttered open. "Come on."

"..Sensors.." Seven sat up, nearly climbing over him to get back to her station. "Radiation from the nebula is disrupting the sensors!" Her fingers flew across the console as Chakotay scrambled to her side, crouched on his knees beside her to see the readings she was studying on the screen. She pulled up another set of scans.

"Can we get out of here?"

"We have no warp drive, and no port nacelle. Thrusters are functional, but at a minimum."

"What the hell kind of radiation is that nebula throwing out at us?" asked Chakotay, looking up at the windscreen and the pulsing purple and pink gas cloud ahead and to the right of them.

"The radiation is not like any on record." reported Seven. Another wave of energy from the nebula hit their shuttle, forcing it to turn about, and rolling it to the side. Were it not for Chakotay grabbing her chair on either side of her waist, they both would have tumbled to the floor.

"Are you okay?" Chakotay asked when the shuttle stabilized. The blonde was definitely a shade or more paler than she had been a half hour ago. His own stomach was doing flip-flops in his belly. He hoped it was from the turbulence and not radiation poisoning, but he doubted he was that lucky. There was no doubt in his mind that the radiation hadn't just washed through the shuttle like water through a sieve.

"..I am mostly undamaged."

Between themselves and the nebula, a rift in space began to open, like a zipper being pulled. Light began to spill out, illuminating the dust and debris on the edge of the nebula's cloud as the rift began to churn and swirl like a vortex. Someone had pulled the plug on the universe ahead of them, and it was swirling down the drain like old bathwater. If it wasn't so totally terrifying, it would have been beautiful- the purple light shining out and the green and pink and orange swirling around the opening of the singularity separating regular space from whatever was inside. Hell, he wasn't even sure it was a singularity- he'd only seen a handful of them ever before, two of which had been created by the blonde sitting white knuckled beside him. His lungs began to burn, and he realized he had been holding his breath. With a gulp of air, he asked, "What is it?"

"It.." Seven's voice was shaky and weak- most likely from the effects of the radiation. "It is a.. gravimetric shear.. emitting a strong.. gravitational pull."

"A shear?" Chakotay shook his head. "That's not a shear."

"Tell that to the sensors, Chakotay." Seven deadpanned, gulping and swallowing before the bile rising up her esophagus decided to meet the console in front of her. "Planet inside.. M-Class." Despite her will, getting sick was inevitable. The blonde turned, dashing back to the aft compartment before she painted the cockpit.

Chakotay took over her station, looking down at the readings streaming across it. "..We can't escape the pull." he said more to himself than anything. He glanced back up at the anomaly drawing them in. They were far enough away that he could maybe send out a beacon. Quickly, he set to work, recording a short message for Voyager along with attaching their sensor data. Another wave of nausea crashed against him. If not for already being sitting, his legs would have given out on him. Finally finished, and feeling the world around him start to edge in black, he pushed the button. "..Sev.. Seven..?" A soft moan was all the answer he received. ' _At least she was alive.'_ he thought, and the world went black.

 **XXX**

 **They really should have went to Ledos...**

 **Love it? Hate it? Tell me in a review!**

 **~LM**


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Notes: Greetings from The Lady Mage! Welcome to chapter 2 of Happenstance! I have SUCH high hopes for this fanfic! It's gonna be a good and long one! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it. :) Special thanks to Starshine and Scifiromance for letting me tell them a story. Love you two! MUAH!**

 **Scifiromance just updated her c/7 fanfic, _The Gift_! Chapter 110 is up, so make sure you check it out!**

 **~LM**

 **Obligatory Legalities: I don't own it, and I do not make any money off of it. Voyager and its characters belong to Paramount. This planet and the things that go on upon it are mine.**

 **XXX**

 _Happenstance: noun: 1. A chance happening or event. 2. Coincidence._

 **XXX**

When Chakotay woke up, it was a slow and arduous process. He was so warm.. but a lingering pain in his arm and leg, and a twinge in his back, continued to peck at his consciousness. Oh, the joys of getting older... He knew he wasn't a spring chicken anymore, but he felt like he'd been rode hard and hung up wet. Pins and needles were beginning to bloom from the arm curled in front of him, and when he went to move it to get some life back in it, there was something holding it down. With a slightly grumpy sigh, he slit open his eyes. They quickly widened.

Laying before him was a wet dream. Seven of Nine's face was mere inches from his, her head pillowed on his numb arm. In sleep, she was completely relaxed, young and lovely. Blonde hair curled around her face like a golden halo where it had slipped from her customary twist. Her arm thrown over his side was curled and pressed against his spine between his shoulder blades; the other arm was folded between them, the flingers splayed over his suddenly increasing heartbeat. They lay stomach to stomach, her breasts pressed to his chest and his knee cushioned between her legs, the two of them tucked away beneath the helm.

The helm?

The events of yesterday came flooding back into him- the nebula, the radiation, launching the beacon, the crash, losing consciousness.. Seven patching him up the night before, huddling for warmth beneath the helm. Before him, Seven made a soft, sleepy noise, and curled closer to him. Her mouth was centimeters from his now, lips full and rose and lush. Her breath ghosted over his chin, raising goosebumps down his neck. Alarm bells began to clang loudly in his head. He had to move- and move fast- before his body began to respond to the soft, curvy young woman pressed so intimately to him... respond to her full chest pressed tight against his.. to the delicious warmth radiating on his thigh between her..

Chakotay jerked, rolling back away from Seven like she had burned him. He felt a zing of remorse when her head knocked against the hard floor grate with a thunk as his arm was quickly taken away, her whole body startling as she was rudely forced awake. Big, blue, disoriented eyes found his brown eyes, then quickly scrolled around the room behind him. Gracefully, she pulled herself together, her hands coming beneath her chest to push her head up off the floor. She brought her metal laced hand up to rub over her bumped temple with a wince. "Commander?" she cleared her throat after the tone of her voice was scratchy with sleep.

Chakotay got a grip on himself before his jaw could drop. "Uh, sorry." he said, clearing the sleep from his own throat. "I thought I.. heard something.."

Seven was instantly alert, blue eyes wide as they met his. "What did you hear?"

He smiled sheepishly. "Oh.. it was just some sort of bird." he dismissed. "Sorry for overreacting like that. Did you bump your head?"

"It is fine." she returned, pulling her hand from her temple. Blue eyes left his to roam over the room she could see behind him. No consoles were lit, and there were several wires and conduits hanging from the ceiling where they had fallen through the holes made by missing plating.

Rolling onto his back, clenching and unclenching his hand to work out the pins and needles, he took in the destruction around them. B'Elanna and an entire team of engineers couldn't hope to piece the shuttle back together- not on this planet and not with the meager supplies they had at their disposal.

"How are your limbs?" Seven asked, her attention back on the commander beside her. With him rolled away from her, the cold was beginning to sink back in. Her biosuits shouldn't allow her to feel this cold- not at this level, anyway. It couldn't be cooler than the mid fifties inside the shuttle. She could feel a shiver beginning in her arms.

"Stiff, a bit." he answered, glancing over at her. The rose-colored lips that had been so tempting before were beginning to bleed lavender. "Are you okay?"

"I am.." Seven paused, clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering. Looking down she realized they were both still wet. The cold temperature and the four hours they had managed to sleep hadn't been enough to dry them. "..cold."

"Me, too." he said, feeling the cool air beginning to sink back into him. His leg and arm ached with the cold. He was sure they would need further tending once it was bright enough outside to properly examine. He grabbed up the rumpled emergency blanket his moving had pulled away from them and turned back to Seven. "Scoot over." he mumbled, bracing himself internally.

"What?" she asked.

"It's still dark and we're cold. If we wait for the sun to come up to dry us, we won't freeze to death." he said, prodding her to turn away from him and face the underside of helm. He scooted in close behind her, pressing his chest up against her back but keeping their hips separate. "Warmer?" Seven nodded, eyes sliding shut as she began to feel the most delicious warmth filter into her cold back. Without her prompting, her body relaxed into it, sagging bonelessly back towards him. He threw his arm over her ribs, his hand coming up to rest over her belly. Chakotay felt sleep calling him back nearly immediately- perhaps as a result of the radiation exposure. Tucking the blanket around them both, he finally gave up the ghost, pulling Seven's body tight to his for heat, then passing easily into sleep.

 **XXX**

When Seven woke up, it was with much reluctance. She had always had difficulty in falling asleep- and more difficulty in staying that way. The Doctor had always told her that it was likely due to her reluctance to relax and that the biobeds just weren't designed with sleeping in mind. Really, she tended to agree to a point. It was difficult to relax when half your mind was literally a super-computer, thoughts categorized and sorted, analyzed and translated, almost before you even thought them. ' _Clear your mind._ ' he'd told her once. Easy for a normal human, maybe. Not so much for her. And the biobeds were uncomfortable. She had only laid in a normal standard issue bed once on the holodeck, and it was like laying on a cloud compared. Honestly, she had been on bunks in holding cells with more padding. So long as regenerating would sustain her without sleep, she had been bound and determined to stick with it over the tossing and turning in sickbay.

But that was before this. Though whatever she laid on was hard, the body pressed against her was not.. well, maybe in certain places, but overall not an unpleasant sensation. Light was filtering into the shuttle, hitting one eyelid enough to make her squint and burrow down deeper. With the light now out of her eyes, she dared to peek them open. They widened immediately.

Chakotay had her bodily pressed against the underside of the helm, his arm cushioning their heads. His forehead was against hers, his mouth centimeters from her own now, cupid's bow lips slightly parted as he slept. His other arm was thrown over her side, the hand pressed warm and heavy to the small of her back. Shoved between her knees like it belonged there was his thigh, his foot hooked around her leg to hold it in place. All over she was warm, both from his bodyheat and the silver emergency blanket slung over them.

' _Cortical node, don't fail me now,_ ' she thought sleepily, letting her eyes slide back closed. ' _Oh.. and thank you, Doctor.._ ' She curled in tighter to him, erasing all of the airspace between them. In front of her, he sighed in his sleep, pulling her tighter. Between her legs, his thigh moved up until it made contact with her body. She jerked in surprise at the sensation, hitting her head on the underside of the helm with a loud thunk. Beside her, he startled awake, rolling onto his back, eyes wild taking in his surroundings as she curled up cradling her head.

"Are you okay?" he asked in concern, his voice thick with sleep.

"..Yes." she ground out. Internally, her head now throbbed with her heartbeat- the muscle kicked into high gear thanks to Chakotay's wandering knee.

"If you don't quit bumping your head, you're going to get a concussion before we even get to explore." he said, aiming for teasing. He scooted back to where he could sit up, then reached in and gave her wrist a tug for her to follow.

She slid out from beneath the helm, one hand still cradled over the crown of her head where it had hit the hard metal behind her. When she pulled her hand back with a wince, it was red with blood.

Chakotay clucked his tongue. " _Ven aquí._ " he said, directing her to lower her head for him to see. Blood was matting into her hair, covering up the injury. "We will have to wash the blood away before I can heal your head."

"No, it's all right, really." protested Seven.

"You're bleeding pretty good." Chakotay said, carefully standing up. When his aching leg held him, he moved down into the aft, grabbing the medkit Seven had left on the floor. "Come on." With a sigh, she followed him, still cradling her injured head. The commander took in the state of the aft with a sour grimace. The jagged scar running across the hull let in a bright beam of light, illuminating every mote of dust hanging in the air. The water was still and calm, the majority of the shuttle's contents either floating or sunk into it. "What a mess." he murmured.

"Quite." Seven agreed softly.

With a quiet sigh, and a soft grunt of pain as he knelt on his sore leg in front of the water, he frowned. Even as hurried and rushed as the night before had been, he was sure that Seven had done her utmost to heal his injuries. They should no longer hurt like they did. He made a mental note to check them again once he was sure Seven was okay, though he was sure it was just the aftereffects of the radiation on either himself or their equipment. Taking the tricorder out of the med kit, he ran it over the clear water flooding the back of the ship, looking for any signs of parasite or dangerous bacteria. Finding none, he pat the moist carpeting next to him for Seven to kneel down. "The water is clean, at least." he said as she crouched beside him. "Drinkable. That's good." He glanced back at the floating items in the water. "Because I'm pretty sure that most of our rations are going to be underwater right now." Another sigh. " _Ven aca._ Let me see your head."

Seven lowered her head, turning so that he could see the bloody mat. She let her eyes slide closed as he gently turned her head to see the wound better, one hand cupped warm over her chin while the other parted her hair. Nimble fingers carefully palpated around her wound, then were gone for a few quick seconds and replaced with ice cold water. The blonde couldn't help the startled jerk that shivered through her body, or the loud gasp of air she sucked into her lungs.

"Sorry. I know it's cold." Chakotay said softly, pulling his shirt free of the waist of his black trousers and lifting it up to wipe the blood away from the cut. He dabbed the fresh blood away, then grabbed the dermal regenerator to seal it back up again. Finished, he wiped the rest of the drying blood away from the wound site, then released his hold on Seven's chin. "All better."

"Thank you." Seven said, pushing her hair back out of her face. She met his eyes, then was drawn to the long hook-shaped cut marring Chakotay's face. "Allow me to heal that for you."

He looked puzzled. "Heal what?"

"Your face." she gestured to the water. "See your reflection?"

The commander leaned out over the water, one hand coming up to trace the bloody scabbed line across his nose and fishhooking up to his cupid's bow. "Oh." he said simply, earning a soft snort from Seven. "Ah, it will heal on its own."

"It will leave a scar." said Seven with a light scowl, lifting the dermal regenerator where he'd set it back in the kit.

"Well, scars are distinguishing on men." Chakotay said with a playful shrug.

"You're already distinguished." Seven said. Two seconds later she realized what had come out of her mouth and froze. Beside her, Chakotay had also paused at her words, but perhaps sensing her being uncomfortable, didn't comment on it. Instead, he turned and leaned down for her to heal the long cut. The blonde mentally shook herself off, looking back up to his face without meeting his eyes. Leaning up onto her knees, she mimicked his hold on her own chin by cupping his jaw with the warm metal of her left hand, then used her right to begin to erase the long cut across his forehead.

"We need to drag this stuff up out of the water." Chakotay said softly, watching her azure eyes slowly follow the path she made with the dermal. "And do an-"

"Shh." she half-whispered, one corner of her mouth turning up. "Do you want this healed properly or not?"

He couldn't help the half-smirk. "Sorry."

"Close your eyes."

" _Sí, señorita._ " He mumbled, obeying. It tickled and itched where she ran the dermal between his eyes and over the bridge of his nose. When she moved to his cheek, he peeked out from between his lashes. Her face was a mask of concentration, bottom lip gently caught between white teeth, brows slightly drawn. The ex-drone was so close to him that one blonde ringlet was tickling his jaw by his ear.

Seven carefully drew the dermal over Chakotay's cheek, and ended it just above his cupid's bow. She put the dermal down before checking her work, gently running her thumb over his lip. His eyes shot open to meet hers. Immediately, her hand was snatched away, and the blonde turned to set about repacking the med kit, trying to hide the deeper blush rising up her neck. For once, having her hair down was a blessing.

"We, uh.." Chakotay turned his attention back to the water and the things floating in it. "We should start trying to figure out what of this is still salvageable."

"Yes." agreed Seven simply, taking the repacked med kit and putting it safely in the dry cockpit.

"I'm glad my bag is waterproof." grumbled the commander, eyeing the fallen lockers half-sunken in the water. "What about your bag?"

"I do not believe so." said Seven, returning to stand at his side.

"Well, no time like the present to begin, then." said Chakotay, standing. He observed the long flat plane of the back of the lockers, jutting out of the water on one side, and sloping down in towards the hatch. With a shrug, he jumped forward, landing on the edge, three feet away from where he had been, and not surrounded on all sides with water. He windmilled his hands once to regain his balance, then looked around again from his new vantage point. From here, he could see over a large piece of ceiling plate to the other set of lockers behind it. "Boy, are you lucky." he said, turning to look at her over his shoulder.

Seven rose one perfect eyebrow. "Pardon?"

He gestured to the plating, reaching over it and into the locker. With a grunt, he lifted up Seven's portable regeneration unit from where it dangled precariously over the water by its shoulder strap. "It didn't fall in the water." he said, carefully moving the unit across his center of gravity and then holding it out to Seven.

"Thank you." Seven said, gently taking the cylindrical unit from him with outstretched arms before turning to store it in the cockpit with the med kit and out of harm's way.

"You're welcome." said Chakotay, carefully turning back around to peer over the plating. "That's one less thing we have to worry abou- _ack_!" Turning, one foot caught on the edge of the lockers, and he lost his balance, landing on his bottom on the slanted metal, and then slipping down into the cool water like a waterslide. He came up sputtering and coughing, the cold temperature enough to take his breath away. "Son of a b-!"

"Are you okay?!" Seven asked, wading into the water and helping Chakotay to stand.

"Yeah, I'm okay." he answered, wiping the water from his eyes. When he blinked them open, he didn't miss Seven's amused smirk as she moved past him to turn the line of lockers he had been sitting on over. "Water's freezing!" He shivered with a grimace, reaching down to help Seven.

"A necessary evil to be in." she half-grunted, wrenching the lockers over so she could begin opening them.

"Evil's right." he groused, assisting her.

 **XXX**

Seven frowned, having to work harder than she liked to keep her feet from sinking into the sand. Her shoes just weren't made for this sort of terrain. Luckily the beach was short- only perhaps six meters between the water and more solid ground.

Outside of the shuttle, in the bright light of the sun- or rather, the white dwarf that could somehow be seen from this little pocket of space- the water was clear and clean, transparent as glass near the shore and a bright teal blue in the middle at its deepest. They had crashed in a dense bit of forest near the base of a tall snow-capped mountain to the west, and what looked like a clay layered mesa to the northeast. The red formation jutted high into the air, freckled with caves and crevices across its cliffs, with one long flat plane on top. The river they had waded out of went both ways, the water fast enough to keep it fresh and clean, but without enough current to drag their shuttle the rest of the way under. She was glad of that- not only because for now it was the only shelter they had, but also because she had no idea how to swim and would therefore be unable to assist Chakotay in retrieving whatever they could underwater. She didn't like the idea of him having to dive down alone, either. The risk of becoming stuck and drowning was too great.

"Wow." Chakotay said softly, turning to take in the scenery around him. "Would you look at this place?"

"Com- Chakotay?" She raised one eyebrow before turning and walking the rest of the way to solid ground as gracefully as she could manage without breaking her ankles.

"I guess if we had to crash," he began, following her. He held out the other tricorder for her to take. "At least we picked a beautiful place to do it.."

She snorted before she caught herself, quickly flipping open her tricorder and moving away from him. She didn't miss his amused grin. "M-class planet. Temperate climate." She read the readings. "No humanoid life within a thousand kilometers... I think this tricorder is damaged." She scowled as the numbers for latitude and longitude continued to scroll though she was standing perfectly still. "I can't get a reading for-"

"The time is off on this one, too." Said Chakotay, holding it out to her. The built in clock continued to scroll between two times, one ticking by seconds, the other seemingly stuck at 0947- likely the moment the first radiation wave hit them.

They had been lucky to find even just these two tricorders in mostly working order. He had been correct that the majority of food rations would be under water. One box had been spared, leaving them with five to seven days worth of food depending on how they stretched it. The good news was that the water was clean and drinkable, so they would potentially only be in real trouble if they were here for more than 15 days or they could find nothing to eat on this planet. Chakotay's waterproof overnight bag had been found, and its contents still dry, the PADDs functional, and the Doctor's holocamera still in working order. That, he had thought, was a good thing, because he really didn't want to listen to the Doctor complain about his broken equipment even if he had used his own replicator rations to immediately replace it. Seven's bag was either still lost under the water or had somehow been sucked out of the shuttle and swept away. They kept their eyes open for it even as they scouted for resources.

Not thirty meters from their shuttle they came across a large patch of leaves growing out of the ground in the soil just up to the sandy beach. The leaves were a deep green, with frilly edges, supported on long, thick green stalks. Chakotay snorted. "Looks like a patch of turnips."

"Turnips?" Seven frowned, walking up to the edge of the patch and crouching down. She waved her tricorder over the leaves in front of her. With a small triumphant smile she looked up at Chakotay where he stood behind her. "These are edible. There is some sort of tuber beneath."

"Edible?" Chakotay crouched beside her.

"Nothing poisonous, at least." said the blonde with a soft chuckle.

"Well, that's.. promising." Chakotay chuckled with her, reaching down and giving one thick stem a tug. "Don't be a carrot.. don't be a carrot.. don't be a carrot.."

Seven scrunched her nose. "Why would it be a carrot? Carrots are indigenous to Earth."

Chakotay barked a laugh. "It would be just my luck! I hate carrots!"

"That must limit your options as a vegetarian."

"Eh, you'd be surprised." He gave the stalk a hard jerk, unearthing a bulbous purple tuber about as big as his palm, dotted with tiny roots growing out every which way, clinging to the dark brown soil they'd been pulled from. "Oh.." He nearly scowled at the vegetable as Seven scanned it with the tricorder. "Edible still?"

"Mostly carbohydrates, a little fiber, a little protein.. Potassium, Vitamin B6.." Seven read off. "Vitamin C.. trace amounts of calcium, thiamin, niacin, folates, zinc, phosphorus, magnesium, riboflavin, and iron." She nodded. "Edible."

The commander shrugged, pulling the stem from the tuber and then cracking it in half. The insides were a deep violet. Using his thumb nail to push back the peel and dirt, he took a tentative bite. He chewed thoughtfully for a second or two, then swallowed. "Not bad." he appraised, "Kind of starchy, and a little sweet. Like a potato or a parsnip, maybe." He looked down at the skin of his hands. "And look- I didn't turn purple." At Seven's amused snort, he held the other piece of vegetable out to her. "Here, try it. See if you turn purple."

"Shy of choking to death on one of these.." Seven said with a playful roll of her eyes. "I fail to see myself changing colors by eating one." She followed his example, using the thumbnail of her human hand to scrape away the dirt and peel, then delicately bit into the purple flesh. Like he had said, it was slightly sweet, and not at all unpleasant to eat.

"At least we won't have to worry about starving." said Chakotay, looking at the large patch of vegetables in front of them. There was another patch several meters farther down the river, and he was certain there had been some closer to the shuttle as well they hadn't thought to scan. Wherever there was abundant sun to kiss the earth beyond the beach, the purple tubers seemed to grow. "We could live off of purple potatoes if we had to."

"They would supplement for a while." Seven said, ever the realist. "But with the last of the rations, should be more than enough."

He nodded. "We can build a little fire to cook some. They have a chalky aftertaste raw."

Her nose scrunched with a nod. "I concur."

"Let's keep hiking up this river for a bit. We can pick some of these on the way back. There seems to be no shortage of them." said Chakotay, standing from his crouch. He pulled his tricorder back out, looking down at the area they had mapped so far. They had found no sign of intelligent life yet, but he continued to be on his guard just in case. "Let's go."

 **XXX**

Chakotay could feel the heat rising in his cheeks as he tried to strike a fire again. He'd found a little piece of rough steel that had been a part of the lockers, and a bit of rock on the ground not far from the shuttle crash that looked and felt like quartz. Striking them together produced a spark, but he couldn't for the life of him get the dry leaves in front of him to catch. With a defeated sigh, he glanced up at the shuttle where Seven was supposed to be retrieving the box of rations to eat with their river potatoes... if he could ever get a fire lit. She was still out of sight, not privy to his struggling. "Damnit, you can lead a damn resistance and command a starship, but you can't light one little fire? Really?" He struck once more, harder, and watched a good spark take hold of the edge of a dried leaf. He dropped the rock to lean down and blow on the leaf, cupping his hands around it to keep it from being blown away. "Come on, you!" He blew again, watching the spot turn red and a little bit of smoke curl up from it. "Almost.." The tiny red ember turned black and died, not enough fuel to sustain it. "Damnit!"

Seven glanced out of the jagged scar across the shuttle just in time to see Chakotay sigh defeatedly. He was turning his little piece of foraged steeled over in his hands, glaring down at the pile of dried leaves in front of him. He was no closer to starting a fire than he had been five minutes ago when she waded through the water to come grab the rations. She supposed that starting a fire was a more difficult undertaking than she had originally imagined it to be, and briefly wondered why he didn't want to use his phaser.

"Alright, come on." she heard him mutter.

Well, if he wanted to attempt to do it without the use of modern accoutrements, she would patiently wait.

Outside, his spark died again.

Of course, there was a limit to how long she could wait- she'd much rather cook the purple potatoes than eat them raw. With an affectionate roll of her eyes, she marched back up into the cockpit to where he had settled his bag with the other things they had salvaged from the water. One PADD was procured from his possession, and before she was even fully outside to wade back to the sandy beach, she was looking up in the built-in encyclopedia just how to start a fire with steel and rock. As he caught sight of her with the PADD, she paused.

"What'cha got there?" he asked, gesturing to the PADD. "Little light reading for dinner?"

"Oh, I.." she paused, tucking the box of rations under her arm to hold the PADD with both hands, walking up beside where he knelt, and crouching down beside him. "I was looking up how to start a fire.."

"Oh, yeah?" He rolled the piece of steel between his hands again, nervously fidgeting.

"Yes. I'm sorry, I was unaware you had already began." she said quickly, setting down the box and pulling the PADD to her chest. "I assumed we wouldn't use phasers to save their battery since she shuttle has no power, and it would be unwise to waste their battery.. I did not mean to overstep."

He raised his eyebrows briefly. "Oh, no, no, you're not overstepping. Have you ever made a fire?" When she shook her head, he smiled, holding out the piece of steel. "Well, if you want, you're welcome to have a go."

The little piece of steel was heavy and warm in her human hand. "I don't want to insult your-"

"Nah, you're good." he cut her off, his smile growing. "Go ahead. What does the PADD say?"

She returned his smile shyly, pulling back the PADD enough to read it. "Well, it says here, that one method has you take your kindling, and construct a fibrous nest of sorts.."

 **XXX**

Later that night, after their dinner of ration bars and roasted purple potatoes, the sun had fully gone down- and the temperature with it. Sitting by the fire, it was warm. Sitting next to each other was warmer still. Without the white dwarf sun, the nebula could be seen from where they sat, the sky starless but for five little points scattered inside the purple, pink, and orange gaseous clouds. Chakotay poked the fire they had started together with a long stick, knocking the biggest log out of the fire to save for the next day and let the smaller sticks burn down. Seven watched the sky with big, bright eyes, unaware that the firelight caught them and turned them a bright honey blonde to match her hair, or that her companion wondered what she would say if she caught him continually turning back to them, unable to look away long.

After a few minutes, she glanced back down at the fire, drawing her knees up to her chest and crossing her arms over them. Nights were cold here- at least this time of year, she supposed.

Chakotay saw her shiver once- just barely- and wondered how well insulated her biosuit was. He was in three layers and beginning to feel the chill of the night. She was only in- he stopped that train of thought before it left the station. "Getting cold." he mumbled softly, meeting her eyes. She nodded once. "And late. We should turn in soon."

"As you wish." she agreed simply, suppressing another shiver.

"Well, no time like the present. Maybe we can get an earlier start on tomorrow- I'd like to hike up to some of those caves. They may make better shelter than this half-submerged shuttle." he said, reaching out with his stick and giving the small campfire a stir to put it out. Without the fire, only the bright lights of the nebula lit the little world they were stranded on, casting just enough light that they could see to wade back into the shuttle. Inside it was pitch black.

Seven felt her way into the cockpit, annoyed that there wasn't enough light available in the mess that was the aft to help her cybernetic eye to see. Once in the cockpit, she groped along the helm for their silver emergency blankets. Chakotay was right behind her, reaching around to grab his own.

"Here." he half-whispered, handing her one of the blankets. "Spread this out under the helm- it will keep our body heat from being leeched into the decking. We can share the other to keep warm."

With a nod, even though he likely couldn't see it, Seven knelt down and spread out the silver blanket. Finished, she glanced back up at him with a soft, "Done."

"Scoot over." Chakotay said, kneeling beside her. The commander gently prodded her back to get her to slip under the helm, then quickly followed her. The blonde lay rigidly, facing away from him, but at the first touch of his arm tucking the blanket around them, his knees coming up behind her knees, and his chest against her back, she relaxed with a quiet sigh. Seven could feel his breath blowing over the nape of her neck, drawing goosebumps down her spine. "I'm sorry I have to be in your personal space, but-"

"I do not mind. It is cold." she cut him off quietly. "Sharing body heat is efficient."

"Yes. Efficient. Goodnight." he whispered behind her ear.

The blonde managed to suppress the shiver his voice pulled. She swallowed once, a little loudly. "Goodnight."

 **XXX**

 **Love it? Hate it? Tell me in a review!**

 **~LM**


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Notes: Greetings and welcome to Chapter 3 of Happenstance! I know its been a while since I updated this, but it WILL get written... I have too much of it already scened and noted out to give up on it now.**

 **Thank so much to Scifiromance and Starshine for being awesome and letting me tell them a story! I couldn't do this without you! XOXO!**

 **Obligatory Legalities: Don't own them. Thanks.**

 **XXX**

 _Happenstance: noun: 1. A chance happening or event. 2. Coincidence._

 **XXX**

He could get used to waking up so luxuriously warm every morning with his body relaxed and warm. There was no need to open his eyes to know where he was or who he was with- he had learned the unique scent that was Seven of Nine. She smelled clean and sweet without a hint of perfume. Shampoo, maybe? He had assumed at one point long ago that she would smell of metal- like the taste of blood on his tongue- but after waking up this close to her three days in a row, he knew that just wasn't true. His face was cushioned in her hair, the silky strands tickling his chin, smelling more of strawberry than the technology he knew flowed through her.

There were noises outside that sounded like birdsong, and the gentle trickling flow of the water through and around their shuttle. He wondered briefly at what kind of animals would pass for birds here. They hadn't seen any animals the day before, nor much sign of there being any nearby. The crash must have scared everything off. The light of early morning was slowly invading his eyes through his closed eyelids. Instead of compelling him to wake up and look around, he found himself unable to resist burrowing his face down in her hair, begging his body for just ten more minutes of rest.

Beside him, she stirred, curling her back into his chest and stomach as she stretched before going limp again with a sleepy grunt. A smirk bled over his face. He knew she was human- since their Borg version of a mind-meld years ago he knew more intimately than others- but it was rare to see or hear her act so.. well, human. He wasn't even aware she was capable of really sleeping until they had crashed here. ' _Speaking of sleep..._ ' He curled his arm over her belly. How long had it been since he had slept next to someone? Had he always slept this well? Sleepily, he wondered.

 **XXX**

When she awoke, it was with a start. What was that sound? Something metallic and sharp. Without opening her eyes, she cocked an ear to listen. After a few seconds it came again, followed by a screeching cawing noise, loud enough to echo in the shuttle. She jolted, her whole body jumping before she lifted her head to try to see behind them.

Curled behind her, Chakotay jerked as well, his arm around her belly tightening as his head shot up and whipped around. Being on the outside, he could see farther once he blinked the blurriness out of his eyes. "What the..?"

"Commander." Seven prompted, turning over so that she was chest to chest with him. She gave him a gentle push so that he would roll back. Once he moved, she slid over his body and out of the space beneath the helm. From her new vantage point on the cockpit floor she could see down to the jagged scar across the shuttle. A pair of taloned feet were holding to the edge of one side, their dark brown claws as long as her thumb. "There is a creature on the shuttle." she whispered.

"Chakotay." he corrected softly. And then, "Let me see." He had eased up beside her, stretching his arms up over his head to pop his shoulders. When she pointed out the taloned feet, he rolled up onto his knees and then into a crouch, half-crawling to where the cockpit met what was left of the aft. He glanced back at Seven, putting a finger to his lips before gesturing for her to follow. He ignored her smirk and the roll of her blue eyes as she crawled lithely to his side and peered up.

Sitting perched on the edge of the gap in the shuttle's hull was a large black bird- or what appeared to be a bird. It was easily the size of a goose, with a short neck and a beak as long and thick as Chakotay's forearm- tipped in a sharp curved spike. Orange and green feathers made stripes down the bird's back, ending in a spray of long curled feathers as its tail, and black bands ringed the length of its beak. A grey beady eye watched the two humans through the gap, the bird's head tilting this way and that to see them better. After a few seconds, it let out another screeching caw. When the noise of its call made the two humans jump, it spooked the bird who cawed once more before spreading its dark wings and taking off into the sky.

Chakotay moved after it, hurrying down to look up through the tear and follow the bird's path up towards the tall red plataus to the East of their position. "Would you look at that?" he muttered under his breath.

Beside him, having followed him down to the aft, Seven knelt down and picked up a long, discarded emerald feather that had fluttered down to the floor as the bird took flight. "Commander."

Chakotay looked down at her with a full smile, entertained by the strange bird-like creature. "Call me Chakotay, Seven." he gently corrected again. His eyes fell on the feather in her hands as she stood up. "Hey, there's a souvenir for you."

Seven turned the feather over in her hands. "A souvenir?" She raised one eyebrow, holding the feather out to her companion. "Wouldn't you rather have it?"

"Perhaps we will come across him again, and I can get a matching one." said the commander, running his finger along the length of the feather.

"I believe we scared him or her off." said Seven, looking back up to the opening. "I doubt it returns."

"Well, I'm not really planning on staying within the confines of this shuttle the whole time we are here." returned Chakotay. "I think it would be safe enough for us to do a little exploring."

"Exploring?"

"I want to see if there are any other animals out there to be seen. They have birds here. I wonder what other kinds of creatures roam this planet." He pat her shoulder. "Come on, Seven.. where's your sense of adventure?" He chuckled when she scowled, straightening her back. "We might as well do something to occupy our time while we wait for Voyager to come find us."

 **XXX**

After a breakfast of the last of the roasted purple potatoes, Seven and Chakotay packed two bags with ration bars, bottled water, tricorders, and a med kit, and then set off along the water's edge and up into the woods. The forested area around them was not unlike woods that would have been found on Earth. The trees grew just as Earth trees did, with thick trunks supporting thick canopies that blocked out the light in patches along the forest floor. Small bushes and plants grew pocked around the tall trees, carving out their own bit of soil in the spotty sunlight afforded them.

Their hike was uphill in the warm air. By the time they reached the bottom of the red dirt plateau four miles from their shuttle, Chakotay's jacket was off and tied around his waist and his grey tshirt turned darker with sweat. Behind him, Seven hiked with only slightly less trouble. A light sheen of sweat decorated her brow, but her hair had fallen in pieces out of her twist until she had knotted it back at the base of her neck to keep the pale strands out of her eyes. Her shoes had been her biggest problem, and for a few seconds every time she nearly tripped over a root or rock she mentally cursed the Doctor's fashion sense. Why had she never seriously thought to change her footwear?

Chakotay pulled a bottle of water from his backpack and held it out to Seven. "Thirsty?"

The blonde accepted it gratefully. "Yes. Thank you." She took a long swig as he pulled out his own water bottle to copy her.

Tucking away his water bottle, Chakotay turned his attention back to the red dirt plateau and the mouth of the cave nearest to them. A lifted eyebrow and a nod towards the opening was all Seven needed to know to follow him. Cautiously, together, they stepped out of the bright light of day, and into the cooler shadows of the cave. Outside was all dark red dirt but inside the cave was dark grey stone veined with pink and orange minerals. Water dripping echoed from far off down past where the single tunnel split into three directions, but the floor was dry dirt well past them. Chakotay's eyes were wide and interested as he pulled his flashlight out of his backpack and clipped it to his wrist. Seven followed his example far more dispassionately, keeping pace as Chakotay carefully led her down to the three-way split.

The deeper into the dark they walked, the more wet the floor became, and the rough rock of the cave mouth became long, smooth washes of water-worn stone. The first atrium was a mere seventy yards down the winding tunnel, swelling open before them. This far down, their flashlights were the only source of illumination, giving the room a haunted feeling. Stalagmites and stalactites reached for one another like the jagged teeth of some sleeping monster. In other places, the formations bled down the walls like melted candlewax, glinting in the light of their flashlights as they carefully explored.

Seven set her jaw, sweeping her flashlight into every corner they came across and keeping close to Chakotay's back. If the formations themselves weren't creepy enough, the absolute dark without their flashlights was. She felt childish letting the fears of her youth continue to haunt her. Outside of simple strategy, the loss of light should not bother her. Still, her heart continued its slightly elevated thud against her ribcage.

"Here." Chakotay saw her jump at his voice- saw her eyes go wide and her teeth grit- but ignored it. He reached out and gently took her human hand in his. "It goes up over here. Watch your step."

The atrium led to a winding tunnel which led to another atrium which led to another tunnel and so on and so forth until they were two hours deep into the cave system with no idea if they were up or down or still level with the world outside. Chakotay, still with Seven's hand tucked in his, stopped at the beginning of the next tunnel. He shined his light down at the floor. "Look."

"What?" Seven followed the beam, shining her own with it. The floor here was more mud than the semi-smooth stone they had slipped and slid over on their way up. She couldn't hold back the grimace- she'd take sliding upon glass-smooth stone over trudging through mud in heels anyday.

"Think you can make it?" asked Chakotay, turning his eyes down to the heels on her feet.

"Yes." she scowled, taking the first step into the muddy tunnel. He followed her closely, his feet making wet squelching noises as the mud fought him for his shoes. Several feet in, the mud won, and Chakotay was left cursing, trying to balance on one leg and reach down to retrieve his lost shoe at the same time. Of couse, the mud- being slick as well as gelatinous- was not the best medium to attempt to balance in. With a grunt, Chakotay fell over into it, burying his arms nearly elbow deep, but keeping his face up. Seven fought to keep the smirk off of her face. "Can you make it?"

The look he shot her was angry for all of two seconds before he rolled his eyes. "A little mud never hurt anyone."

"That's good." Seven returned, sloshing back to him and holding a hand down. "Because that's a lot of mud."

He took her hand with a snort, trying to pitch himself back up with his other arm. She pulled him back to standing, then let him lean on her while she retrieved his lost shoe. "Thanks." he said, quickly slipping his foot back into it before they continued on. "This is like walking through quicksand."

At the end of the tunnel, they stepped into another atrium. This time, there was only one long stalactite hanging from the center of the room like a great stone chandelier. Several sharp calcified points dripping water down into a large hole in the stone floor beneath it. Chakotay approached first, dropping his bag to the floor and shining his light down into the hole eroded beneath the formation.

"Woah. Look." he said, gesturing for her to follow him. When she came to stand beside him, he firmly gripped her forearm. "Look down- but be careful."

Seven lifted one eyebrow before gingerly leaning forward and shining her light into the hole. The water was dripping down into a giant cavern beneath them, its walls glittering like jewels as the beam of her flashlight refracted. Spots of vibrant blue and deep purple shimmered as the water from the formation dropped onto it and rolled down into the chasm beneath to drip into the large body of milky water below. To her brief fascination- and then her great horror- something long and dark slid through the water like a giant snake, its length easily taller and girth wider than she herself. With a startled gasp, she flung herself back from the hole, pulling Chakotay away with her. "Oh my-!"

The two sprawled back onto the hard rock floor, Chakotay landing flat on his back with a sharp bark as the air was pressed from his lungs. Seven landed half on him before she flipped over and scurried back to the far wall. With her back pressed to the semi-smooth stone, she was able to quickly compose herself. A blush bled up her neck to color her face.

"Are you.." Chakotay coughed, his voice gruff as he rolled over. "..okay?" He looked up at her as he got to his knees, coughing once more before turning to look at the eroded hole behind him. "What happened?"

"I.." Seven felt her blush deepen. "There is a- a creature.. I- it startled me."

Chakotay scowled, moving closer to the hole for another look. Seven's hand around his ankle stopped him. "Seven, it's okay." he soothed, gently disentangling his foot before moving back to the hole on his belly. Peering down with his flashlight, he saw nothing but the chalky water. "I don't see anything."

"It was long and dark." Seven said, gingerly crawling beside him to look again for herself, feeling silly for her overreaction. "Like a serpant."

"Birds? Snakes? I wonder what other life forms this planet has." Chakotay sat up on his haunches again, preparing to turn back, when Seven grabbed his wrist.

"Look." she whispered as the creature moved to the surface of the water again, black scales glistening in the light of their flashlights where its long body breached the milky fluid. "See?"

"Spirits." Chakotay wheezed, surprised. "You're right- it looks like a snake. Like an anaconda from Earth."

"A what?"

"HUGE snakes. Lived in the rainforests, I think. Extinct now. Let's not see how he compares.."

Seven shook her head, quickly standing and backing away from the hole. "No. Let's not."

The Commander smirked, amused by her reaction, and took to his own feet. Grabbing up his backpack from where he'd dropped it, he circled the room with his flashlight. The only other way out of this particular chamber was a tight squeeze through a long slit in the wall. Examining it closely as he walked to it, he was fairly certain they would fit through it. "We'll have to carry our bags." he said as Seven moved to stand beside him. "But otherwise, we should fit, don't you think?"

Seven looked over the smooth stone, lit by his wristlight. "Yes. We will fit." She wriggled in first, her backpack slipped off and held at her side as she side-stepped through the space. He quickly followed her, having only a little more difficulty.

"That's going to be interesting to get back through." Chakotay said as he slid out the other side. He didn't miss the quick roll of Seven's eyes in his light. "Be adventurous."

"I'm here and not in my lab on Voyager. Is that not adventurous?" she returned, turning from him and shining her light on the walls of this new, hollow chamber. A strange splash of color on the walls caught her eyes. "Chakotay."

"Yes?" he asked, swinging his bag back onto his shoulders.

" _Mira_."

Chakotay scrunched his nose in amusement as he turned his head towards her, ready to ask her what was so important and then tease her for it. Instead, the easy smile on his face went slack as his eyes widened. "Spirits." he murmured, stepping beside her, his eyes roving the colors painted on and the carvings chiseled into the rock walls before them. "Cave paintings!" He turned to her suddenly, an excited expression on his face. "You know what this means?"

Seven smirked. "I'm sure you're about to inform me."

Ignoring the jab, he turned his attention back to the walls. "Intelligent life! There's intelligent life on this planet!"

Seven turned thoughtful. "Or there was. Just because you find a few scribbles on a cave wall doesn't mean there's a city outside. They could have died out, or the star that is dying above us could have killed them all with radiation."

Chakotay scoffed. "That happened forever ago- you said so yourself. These people could have evolved since then!"

The blonde felt a shiver go up her spine. "Cavemen?" She glanced around the darker portions of the cavern, using the full extent of her Borg eyepiece to analyze the shadows. "Like.. like.. like Fred Flintstone?"

The dark-haired commander snorted, laughing. "Tom?"

"Who else is obsessed with the twentieth century and insists upon forcing that knowledge onto the rest of the crew?" dead-panned Seven.

"Fair point." murmured Chakotay. Without taking his eyes from the wall, he slipped off his backpack enough to pull a PADD from it. "Still, this should be documented. We are still on a mission after all." With that, he held up the PADD and snapped his first photo.

 **XXX**

Two and a half hours later, Seven regretted ever pointing out the cave paintings to Chakotay- though she supposed the break was nice. Ex-Borg or no, her feet were beginning to feel sore in her impractical shoes. Once more, she silently cursed the Doctor's idea of fashion. Perhaps he felt she would never need to take leave of the ship. Certainly he never imagined she would need to hike and climb and explore dark caves in heels. What she wouldn't give for a pair of shoes like Kathryn wore during their holodeck games. What were they called again? Oh yes- sneakers.

Perhaps hearing her sigh for the eighteenth time, Chakotay finally turned his eyes back towards the bored ex-drone. He gave her a half-apologetic smile. "It's got to be getting late, right?" At her nod, he continued. "Why don't we bed down in here tonight? When we wake up, we can start making our way back- or maybe find a different way out- and head back to the shuttle with all our data. This place is as good as any, right?"

Seven looked around the small chamber they stood in. It was shaped rather like a cartoon octopus- the head being the bulbous round chamber they stood in, and the tentacles being the several passageways they split out on all sides of it. The floor was fairly smooth on one side, and dry enough that they wouldn't get wet from resting there. It was not ideal, by any means. "Acceptable."

Chakotay nodded, glad that she had agreed. He was not yet ready to leave. He wanted to look over every square inch of the interesting scenes on the walls. He had seen quite a few pictures that he was sure were of the same black bird they had met just that morning in the shuttle, as well as the purple potatoes and the pink fish that swam lazily in the water near it. The other animals though he could only guess at. There was one that seemed very similar to a large cow, but with tusks like an elephant, and a deer-like creature with just one horn jutting out of its forehead. The others he was still unsure of. Perhaps they would see examples of them before they were rescued.

With another sigh, Seven dropped her bag beside her, crouching down to pull the bedroll from it and methodically rolling it out on the driest bit of ground she could manage. Her small lantern was placed beside it and turned on, throwing shadows around the great round room. Chakotay pulled a handful of ration bars from his bag and held them out to Seven. "Here- eat." he said, placing them into her hands. "I'm gonna go down this tunnel and see if there are more paintings on the other side. Are you coming with or staying here?"

The blonde scowled before she could school her face into its typical nonchalance. "You do not require rest?"

"Oh, I'll rest in a little bit." he assured her, unwrapping one ration and taking a bite. "Settle down here, and I will be right back." Chakotay said, taking another bite of his ration as he headed to the widest tunnel off the room.

Seven eyed him warily, but sat down on the sleepmat and watched him leave. Let him chase his cave drawings. She glanced around the darkened atrium, void of light but for the tiny lantern set before her. Now was not a good time to decide the darkness still scared her, but the thought rose to the front of her mind anyway. Before shadows could morph into spectres, she laid down and pulled the thin blanket up to her shoulders, telling herself that Chakotay was only in the next tunnel or so, and he would be right back. She was not as alone as she felt.

Forcing her eyes to close, she curled up and attempted to fall asleep.

 **XXX**

Seven's lack of interest did little to deter him. If she wanted to sit and read things that had already been discovered while he was potentially the first new set of eyes to view these paintings then so be it. Not everyone had an appreciation for history. Perhaps it was her Borg upbringing. He was fairly certain the Borg abandoned the past as soon as they discovered something new- deemed it irrelevant and moved on without so much as a glance over their artificial shoulders. With that thought, he tried to cut Seven some slack. Maybe he could eventually change her mind- somehow garner her interest.. but why?

Chakotay paused, turning and looking back down the dark passageway towards where he had left the blonde. It was then that he realized just how far away he had wandered chasing the cave paintings. He could no longer see any light from her lantern glowing down the tunnel. How long had he been away from her? Surely they were safe in these caves.. these paintings were obviously very old. The paint was stained and chipped, age dulling its edges and moisture from the caves erasing some pieces almost entirely- there was nothing new about them. They had scanned their surroundings with the tricorder the day before and seen they were alone in this area, and possibly alone on this planet. Unless there was some kind of cave mouse to scare her to death- and wouldn't that be funny? A Borg afraid of a mouse?- then they were quite safe.

Secured, he continued on down the long passage, around a sharp corner, and was surprised to find himself only twenty feet from the open air out of a hole just tall enough to crouch in. Forgetting the paintings for a moment, he hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder and walked to the little mouth, dropping down to his haunches to see outside.

Looking down, he could see that they were only a good thirty feet off the ground, and only around half a mile from where they had started. The cave had been a maze of roundabouts and turnarounds, but he figured they would be nearer to the top than this by now. The river and their shuttle they had left behind them was now to the far left. To the right and behind the mesa were wide open plains of tan grasses rippling in the wind. The sun was done for the day, leaving the four points in the sky to act as moons, reflecting enough like to make out shapes in the distance, but no particular detail.

He dropped his backpack by the red dirt mouth as he soaked in the view. For a moment, he wasn't on some random planet in the Delta quadrant. He wasn't in a cave with Seven of Nine, waiting for rescue and distracting himself away from.. well, from her.. with cave paintings. No- he was on Dorvan V, camping with his father. The cave drawings weren't there by unknown hands but by his own ancestors. Any minute now, his father was going to round that corner and scold him for howling at the moon instead of studying the knowledge sacred enough to their forefathers that they preserved it for future generations to learn from, and he would have to roll his eyes to keep from saying how bored he was.. How bored he always was when Kolopack decided to drag him somewhere halfway across the world- or halfway across the quadrant- to chase the ghosts of their ancestors.

That was a thought not so easily shaken from his mind. The guilt alone was enough to shame him, red hot flames of it licking behind his eye sockets. Like a sentimental fool, he looked back to the bend in the tunnel- hoping for a second that Kolopack would come to scold him. He would take it with a smile- any time. Hell, he'd take Seven coming after him now- and her little cave mouse, too. Anything to ease the sudden ache of loneliness and homesickness he felt. For a second, he started to turn back. He was sure Seven would be settled by now. He could easily unroll his bed beside her, bask silently in the fact that he wasn't really alone here, and maybe fall into a dreamless sleep. Instead, he turned back to the night sky. Perhaps he would howl at the moon a little longer.

 **XXX**

 **Love it? Hate it? Tell me in a review!**

 **~LadyMage**


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Notes: Hello and welcome to chapter four! It's been a little while since I've been able to update this one, but life just gets in the way sometimes. This one and Perfectus are my babies... and What We Need.. anyway, thanks so much to Scifiromance and Starshine for letting me tell them a story! XOXO!**

 **Obligatory Legalities: Oh, I didn't own them in the last chapter, but I TOTALLY do now... uh huh... I wish.**

 **You know the drill- READ, ENJOY, REVIEW!**

 **~LM**

 **XXX**

 _Happenstance: noun: 1. A chance happening or event. 2. Coincidence._

 **XXX**

Seven was shaken awake by a hand wrenching into her hair, pulling her painfully from laying down to sitting with one swift jerk. Another hand grabbed her left wrist, and was picking at the silver bands that laced across it. When her eyes snapped open and focused, she was surrounded. Ten men stood before and around her- unfamiliar and foreign and speaking hushed but excitedly in a language she did not know. One held a jagged stone knife, its blade pressed against her throat, before he spoke to her. His voice was low and forceful, but his words were nonsense.

"Who are you?" she demanded, but her voice was a startled squeak. They paid her no mind.

The natives were tanned with black hair and eyes so dark brown that they glittered like polished ebony in the glow of the two lit torches they carried with them. The group was dressed in crude linen loincloths and leather breeches, their chests bare but for the myriad of paint and tattoos they decorated themselves with, and the leather straps that held bows, quivers, and daggers. The man holding her hair knotted in his hand turned her face up as another held its torch closer, all examining her in the firelight. She reached up with her free hand to yank her hair away, but another native caught her human limb in his, and twisted it behind her back.

Two others grabbed her legs as she was forced onto her back, and the blade that had been held to her throat slashed its way down the front of her biosuit, splitting it away from her neck to her navel. As she caught sight of the native with the most elaborate facial markings- his face painted entirely black but for a jagged red lightning bolt from his hairline to his chin- stepping up to her, his hands loosening the ties to his loincloth, she realized what they were about to do. That knowledge returned her fully to her senses.

"Chakotay! _CHAKOTAY_!" she screamed. The abruptness and the volume startled the men assailing her. They immediately flew into a bustle of motion. Someone grabbed the newly cut edges of her biosuit and ripped it open, exposing her bare breasts to the cold air of the atrium as the elaborately marked leader tried to settle between her knees. She screamed, twisting her body, pulling at her arms. "Chakotay! _No_! Let me _go_!" Another hand came down to cover her mouth, muffling her next scream as she struggled. With all her enhanced strength, she bit down until the coppery taste of blood flowing over her tongue gagged her. The hand was wrenched away, followed by another hitting her across the face hard enough to whip her head to the side. Again, the biosuit was cut, the knife knicking the skin of her belly as it drew down.

"Seven!" Chakotay's voice echoed in the chamber as he drew to an abrupt halt at its entrance. His eyes widened in surprise as he took in the commotion in the room centered around his blonde companion. Four of the men were holding her down. Two held torches to light the room. The remaining four were in various stages of undress. Chakotay had his phaser out and pointed at the men without having to think about what he was doing. "Let her go!"

At the sight of him, the natives paused. Besides the funny clothes and the facial tattoo that was all wrong, he looked far more similar to them than whatever the female was. Still, he wasn't one of them. They turned their daggers towards him, ready to get him out of their way so they could finish with the strange female.

"I'm warning you!" said Chakotay, setting the phaser to high stun. He dodged the dagger experimentally thrown at him, aiming and shooting the native that threw it. The male crumpled to the floor with a pained groan. "Seven, run!" With the natives suddenly preoccupied with their fallen comrade, Seven managed to scuttle away from the men and back towards him. Chakotay was then able to grab her arm and haul her up to her feet. He gave her wrist a sharp tug, and together they ran out of the long tunnel to the smaller mouth of the cave where he had just moments before been off in his own world. At the edge, he quickly grabbed his bag before they dipped out began to slip and skid their way down the steep red clay hill towards the woodline. "Down here!" Chakotay huffed, pulling her with him into the woods for some much needed cover. Behind them, they could hear the natives yelling in the cave as they recovered enough to give chase.

"Where?!" Seven yelped, nearly tripping over a tree root.

"Back to.." Chakotay dodged under a low tree limb in their path, making sure to jerk her down too so she didn't hit it. "..the shuttle!"

"-kay." She grunted, falling to one knee as a vine caught her ankle. Her hand was wrenched from his by the fall, the arm crossed over to hold her chest up forced away to catch herself before her face impacted the hard ground.

"Seven!" Chakotay slid to a stop, scrambling back as she stood up- nearly colliding with him. They met in the middle, stomach to bare stomach as he grabbed her free hand again. Something whizzed past his ear, hitting the tree trunk behind him. He turned his head after it, blanching when he saw the two foot long arrow embedded into the bark, still vibrating from impact. " _Mierda_!"

Another arrow shot past Seven. "Run!" she hissed, pushing him back into motion. The rest of the way back to the crater and shuttle was a tumbling, sliding half-hour long run, dodging under and around tree limbs and bushes. Finally, near the bottom, they managed to pull ahead of the natives, sloshing into the cold water their ship rested half in. They quickly lowered the hatch enough to squeeze through, then shut and locked it behind them.

Chakotay pulled Seven with him up into the dry cockpit where they finally began to catch their breath. Seven leaned heavily against the bulkhead by the door, her breath wheezing gasps as she held her ruined biosuit together over her chest. Chakotay doubled over, his hands braced on his knees as he coughed.

Suddenly, he spun on her, grabbing her by the upper arms and looking her over. A surprised squeak came from her mouth as her eyes widened. He gave her an apologetic look, easing the strength with which he held her arms. "Are you hurt? Are you okay? Did they-? They didn't-" His eyes squinted with a wince as he looked at her exposed belly.

To her great shame, his words- the acknowledgement of what had almost happened to her- broke the dam of her new emotions. Her eyes suddenly were overflowing with tears as quiet sobs began to shake her body. Her chest hurt and burned with exertion from thirty minutes of running, and now her throat burned from trying to hold in her crying. "I- they-"

"Hey, shhh." Chakotay murmured, seeing her distress and pulling her gently to him. "It's okay now." The blonde trembled as he wrapped his arms around her, one hand rubbing her back as he watched the woods through the windscreen for natives.

Seven's first instinct was to wrench herself away, her whole body stiffening as it came into contact with his. She was not one to be coddled, and that she wanted nothing more than to lean back into him and let him chase her boogeymen away was enough to further embarrass her. That she couldn't hold back these new, stronger feelings made the whole thing worse. A month ago, she could have put what happened behind her and moved on as soon as she was safely out of that situation- Borg efficiency at its finest, live in the now and not the past, this is only a vessel she was using for a short time. When the Doctor told her she had to remove her failsafe, she hadn't realized the depth of the changes to come.

Two minutes into her downward spiral reflection, they heard before they saw the natives rush into the crater their shuttle had carved before it hit the water, their excited yells becoming awed and fearful murmurings. Seven clutched his arms at the sound as another shot of adrenaline coursed through her body. With the jagged hole torn in the side of the ship, anyone could look in and see them. "Hide." she whispered. "Chakotay, please.."

He turned his head back to her with a nod, pushing her up towards the helm. "Down here." he whispered, gently prodding her to crawl beneath it. He crawled down after her, pressing her against the metal beneath with his body, trying to make them as small and innocuous as possible. " _Shhh_." There they lay still, listening as the natives outside examined their crash site and the outer hull, hoping they remained unseen. He turned to look at her over his shoulder, his body facing the cockpit. Seven's face was pressed tightly against his shoulder, her whole body shivering behind him. "Hey, are you alright?"

"N-n-no." came the muffled reply. " _Shhh_."

Outside, they could hear the men talking, their voices deep and argumentative. Randomly a knife or some other object would tap or scrape along the plating outside, ringing inside and sending chills down Seven and Chakotay's spines. At least a few of the braver natives had entered the water, sloshing and splashing their way around the giant foreign structure as they examined it. After a good half hour, their voices turned more awed and hushed until finally, Chakotay could hear them traipse back into the trees.

"Are they gone?" Seven whispered after a moment of silence.

"I think so." Chakotay whispered back, turning his head to look at her over his shoulder. She remained huddled against his back, and in the dark of the shuttle, beneath the helm, he couldn't make out more than the light shape of her head. Slowly sliding out of his hiding place, stretching his cramped leg muscles, he eyed the scar. "I'll check."

Two pale hands grabbing his shoulders stopped him. "Please don't."

"I have to." he returned gently, easing her hands away with his own as he continued to slip out from beneath the helm. "It's okay- I'm only right here."

"You were only supposed to be 'right there' earlier." she whispered, following him out.

Chakotay sighed, watching her slip out next to him. "I'm sorry. Really sorry." he said, standing and walking to the aft. "I didn't realize how far from you I had wandered. Thankfully still in hearing range." A small hum of agreement was all he received as he turned back to glance at her over his shoulder. Her biosuit was a ruin- muddy, wet and shredded around her calves and split open from collar to.. He quickly averted his eyes. "Did you.." He swallowed. "Did you bring more clothes?"

Seven's face flushed with sudden shame, her hands coming up to cross over her exposed chest. Since when did she feel shame at having been seen without clothes? Forcing the question aside, she shook her head even though he wasn't looking at her to see. "No." she answered softly. "I didn't."

Chakotay nodded. "Don't think we can get the replicator up and running." he said, trying to make his voice teasing to lighten the mood. He sighed, crossing his arms before slowly turning his head back towards her, careful to meet her eyes and nothing more. "Guess you will have to borrow some of mine then." At her raised silver eyebrow, he moved across the cockpit to his bag. When he turned back towards the blonde, he had a bundle of soft blue in his hands. "They're pajamas but they'll have to do."

Seven started to reach out to accept them, but stopped before she released the edges of her ruined suit. "I-"

"Here." Chakotay set them on the dark console beside her, then turned to go back into the aft to give her privacy. "Go ahead and change. I'll wait out-"

"No!" Again, her hand shot out to his, halting his step. "Stay. Don't leave." Just as quickly as she had reached out to him, she recoiled, turning away from him and towards the clean clothes. Her face burned hotter than a warp core. "Just turn around. Please."

The Commander swallowed again, turning away from her to face the dark grey wall behind him. "Okay. Turned around." Behind him, he could hear the soft rustle of fabric and the click of her shoes before she kicked them off. After a few more moments of quiet, her hand on his shoulder turned him back towards her. His clothes seemed to swallow her. Their heights were similar, but his powder blue sleepshirt hung around her like a poncho, emphasizing how slender she was. His blue and white plaid pajama pants hung off her hips, the blue cord tied as tight as it would go to keep them from slipping off. The bottoms pooled over her feet so that only her bare toes stuck out from beneath, the nails painted a bright red. He grinned. "You paint your toenails?"

She looked down to her feet with a scowl, pulling his shirt in tight to her belly to see her toes. "Oh. No. Naomi Wildman did before we left." she answered softly. "It is an activity she enjoys and Samantha Wildman allows when she is in my temporary custody."

He had known- most of the ship, really, had known- of her affection for Naomi Wildman, but he never would have guessed she would have allowed the little girl to paint her nails. He started to open his mouth to tease her- a gentle jest to bring a smile back to her face- but one glance into her eyes halted him. Even in the dark he could see how loosely she was held together, her hands trembling as she tried to hold them still in front of her belly before hiding them behind her back. She stood to her full height, trying to keep her chin up in her ever-aloof military stance, but she wasn't fooling anybody- least of all herself. Instead, he gave her a little smile, reminded of what had just happened to her. What if that had happened to Sekaya? To B'Elanna or Kathryn or any of his other female friends?

"Thank you." Seven said quietly, wringing her hands behind her back. When he met her eyes with an inquiring eyebrow raised, she clarified. "For the clothes.. and for.. coming back so quickly."

"No problem." he returned gently. "I'm shouldn't have left you alone. I won't make the same mistake again." He could tell she was about to protest- tell him in her own words that she was a big girl who could take care of herself- but she stopped and nodded once instead.

"We can't stay here." she said softly after a few breaths. "They will likely return."

Chakotay nodded, turning to look out at the night sky. The nebula above them kept the area lit as much as a full moon on Earth would have. They wouldn't have any trouble traveling at night. "Right." he agreed. "We should pack up what we can and take it with us." He looked back to their few bags and belongings piled in the cockpit. "We only need to survive for about a week or two. I'll start packing up. Why don't you go ahead and plot us a course with the tricorder. Find us a nice camping site a few miles from here. I know there's a tent somewhere in this.. mess.." He trailed off as he began to search through the wreck that was the aft.

Partially reassured, Seven let out a quiet sigh, relaxing her stance to take up the tricorder from their pile of belongings and supplies. The little tech was flipped on and Seven had it taking readings before Chakotay had a single cabinet or hidey-hole opened. She settled the small device down on top of their meager baggage to assist Chakotay in searching for any more valuable supplies they would need, but the numbers on the screen kept drawing her attention back. The time and coordinants kept flipping back and forth. One fifteen AM, four thirty-two PM, one sixteen AM, four thirty-two PM, one seventeen AM, four thirty-two PM. With a scowl, she took the tricorder back into her hands. "Chakotay?"

Chakotay had just found the emergency tent stuck down below the edge of the water, sodden but intact. He held it out to drip away from his torso as he turned his attention back to his companion. "Yeah?"

"This tricorder is malfunctioning." she murmured absently, turning it over in her hands.

"Huh?" He shook out the last big drops of water from the tent and stuffed it under his arm. Next, he grabbed the strap of her small portable regeneration case and the longer strap of his duffel. He nearly dropped them all as Seven sucked a sharp breath in beside him. Frightened eyes found his as she held the tricorder out to him to examine. "What's wrong?"

"There are two hundred and seventy-four life signs on the other side of the cave system we were just in." she said in a voice that started small and gained strength as she shoved the tricorder into his arm to shoulder a few bags herself. "And forty-three on this side heading our way." Her regeneration case was plucked from his grasp as she made her way to the hatch. "I have to go."

"Hey, wait!" Chakotay caught her by the arm. He showed her the screen again. "They're going slow and won't be here for thirty minutes. Grab some of this stuff first and we will go."

Her eyes were half wild when she looked back at him. "Commander-"

"That's an order." he returned, his voice firm. "We have to take everything we can with us, Seven. I know you're scared-"

"I am _NOT_." she denied in a harsh whisper.

"Don't lie to me." Chakotay handed a few more of the bags to her. "Here- let me set up a beacon so Voyager at least knows where to look for us when they come, okay?" He waited for her nod before turning to go back into the cockpit to grab what he would need. "Just have to wire up this-" As he pulled a tall silver tube from beneath the helm, Seven breezed past him, yanking open the helm console and pulling the motherboard up from it. Before he could move to help her, she had the beacon on, flashing, and hooked up to its own power source.

"Let's go." she said, tucking the subspace beacon below the helm and out of sight. She grabbed up her bags again and the tricorder, making a beeline for the hatch.

"Okay, okay. Let's go."

 **XXX**

A domed bit of outer hull was thin enough to float, and turned in the water like a bowl, held the majority of their meager things. A bit of cable became rope to pull it along the river as they headed East and away from the shuttle and the now occupied mesa to the West. As Chakotay pulled the makeshift raft along the edge of the river, Seven, microfilament in hand, continued to fiddle with the malfunctioning tricorder. She turned it over as she walked, opening the sealed backing and peering down into the circuitry with her enhanced eye. There were no loose connections nor any other visual defect that she could see. The tricorder seemed to be in as pristine condition now as when it had been replicated. So why the malfunction?

"Come on, you stupid.." Chakotay mumbled, yanking the cable to pull the raft past a bit of reeds it had become stuck on. With a sigh, he dropped the cable and leaned down to shove the float back out into the water. "Seven, a hand?"

The blonde paused her step, turning to look down at him. Without a word, she stepped up beside him and used one bare foot against the edge of the raft to shove it back off of the reeds. She ignored his snort to continue tinkering with the tricorder.

"Or a foot." Chakotay rolled his eyes, standing and brushing the sand from his knees. "Whichever." Retrieving the cable, he continued to pull the float along the water's edge. "Have you figured out what is wrong with that tricorder?"

"..No."

After a second of silence, he glanced back at her over his shoulder. She trailed along behind him, her focus on the equipment in her hands and not on him or their surroundings. Again, he rolled his eyes, turning his attention back in front of him before he tripped over the rocks or branches that littered the short beach. "How far do you think we've gone now?

Seven glanced up at him, then back behind them, before answering. "Four hours.. About seventeen kilometers.."

"Not far enough."

Remembering the night before, Seven shook her head. "No. Not far enough." A shiver ran through her frame before she turned her attention back to the tricorder, but whether it was from the cool breeze or the memory of a stone knife cutting her biosuit open she couldn't be sure. Perhaps both. With another shake of her head, she put it out of her mind. "Why.. won't you.. work?" she mumbled, taking her microfilament and holding it between her pursed lips. A flick of a metal tipped finger lifted the metal plate protecting the power source.

"Are you talking to that tricorder?" Chakotay asked, amusement in his voice.

"..No." Her voice held an edge of frustration. She stabbed the microfilament into the power source, forcing the tricorder to do a hard restart. As it clicked and beeped in her hands, she called up her own chronometer for the time to use as a baseline before reprogramming the malfunctioning tech. The numbers flew across her mind's eye, scrolling along as they continued to tick off time in heartbeats. It was only then, as the numbers missed a beat, that she stopped to pay more attention to what her cortical array was trying to tell her. A chunk of time.. was missing. "..what?"

Seven's attention turned fully inward. _'I have an eidetic memory- I can't lose time!'_ The numbers continued to scroll past, and there is was- a bit of missing data ninety-three hours long. _'I'm BORG! I CAN'T LOSE TIME!'_ There was no way that they had been exposed to enough radiation to affect her chronometer- not without killing them in the process. So where had the time gone? "..what?!"

Chakotay took a few seconds to register that Seven was no longer following him. Her footfalls had been soft but even, and he had unconsciously been using their rhythm to march along to. When he glanced over his shoulder, he did a double-take so hard he nearly gave himself whiplash. Seven was stock-still, her eyes wide and horrified, hands clutching the tricorder so hard that it was creaking under the stress. The fifteen feet between them was closed in three steps before he took hold of her upper arms. More worrying was that she didn't react at all to his touch, her eyes unfocused staring out over the water. "Seven?" He shook her shoulder. "Hey! Seven!" He put one hand to her cheek, turning her face to his. "Seven! What's wrong? Are you hurt? What is it?"

Like a switch thrown, she came back alive. The burn in her lungs let her know she had been holding her breath. With a gasp, she sucked in a lungful of air, her eyes focusing on Chakotay's. "Chakotay?" She dropped the tricorder without a thought, her hands coming up to close around his wrists. "Chakotay, the tricorder- it-it-"

He glanced at the fallen tech before meeting her eyes again. She was worrying him. "What about it?"

"It's not wrong!" she answered. Her eyes flickered away from his, landing on the raft, the water, up to the sky and the nebula clearly visible in it, then back to his. For a few seconds she looked as lost and wild as she had been after they had plucked her from the Collective- a scorpion ready to strike out to defend herself. "It isn't malfunctioning!"

"Woah, woah, calm down." He shook her grip off of his wrists, sliding her hands into his own. She took two deep breaths, looking down at his thumbs as they smoothed over her knuckles, metal and skin alike. When she met his eyes again, she seemed calmer. "Now, what is wrong?"

"The tricorder isn't malfunctioning." she answered.

"What? Then why aren't they keeping time? Why aren't they calibrating correctly?"

She nearly scowled, her eyebrows drawing down. "They are."

"No.." He shook his head. She may be a genius, but he was no idiot. He had looked at the same tricorder- had read the same incorrect data. She'd only showed it to him five times since they had started walking.

"Yes!" she countered. "Chakotay, I have a gap in my memory!"

He scrunched his nose. "A gap?"

"A gap. I'm missing data-"

A sigh breezed past his lips. "Seven, you hit your head pretty hard when we-"

"No, that's not it, Chakotay." she shook her head. "I'm missing data from-"

"You said you were knocked out in the crash- that you woke up under the bench in the aft! The radiation-"

Again, she cut him off. " _Listen_ to me! My chronometer _never_ stops- not unless I _die_!" The lifted eyebrows let her know he still didn't understand. "Whether I am awake or asleep, my cortical node keeps time. It does not _stop_. It does not skip a beat."

"The radiation-"

The wild look came over her eyes again, the ice blue turning electric. She ripped her hands from his, clutching them together beneath her ribcage as a tremor ran over her frame. "No! It does not _STOP_ , Chakotay! It does not skip time!" Her gaze flickered back out to the water, the raft, the nebula, the woods to her right, the long line of the river ahead of them. "And I have a gap!"

The Commander changed tactics, letting her back away from him to pace to the water's edge and back. Her hands wrung beneath her bust, pulling his shirt tight to her body. For a second she looked small, swimming in her borrowed clothes. "Alright." he acquiesced, making his voice soft and gentle. "You have a gap. Tell me what that means."

"It means nothing good and everything bad." she answered, her bottom lip catching between pearly white teeth for a second as she continued to pace. "There is a temporal difference between whatever anomaly we are inside of- this pocket of space- and the bit of space we were observing the nebula from."

"Temporal?" The follicles on his arms began to tighten, the hair bristling over a sea of goosebumps. He gulped softly, thumbing his nose. "Temporal?"

"There is a time difference." Seven murmured, her focus beginning to turn inward again, a hundred calculations zooming across her mind's eye.

He scowled. "I know what temporal means, Seven!"

The blonde ignored him, pacing to the water and back once more before stopping in front of him. "I'm missing ninety-three point seven two one hours."

"What does THAT mean? English, Seven."

"The gap is three point nine days long.. and there is no way that either of us laid in that shuttle for that-"

" _¿Qué significa eso?!_ "

"That's the time differential." she clarified. "For every one hour spent in our.. regular space, ninety-one point four one two hours passes on this planet."

Internally, he reeled. Externally, he met her eyes before spitting out a disbelieving, " _¿QUÉ?_ "

"And Voyager isn't scheduled to rendevous with us for another ten days." she said softly, "That is twenty-one thosand, nine hundred and thirty-eight point eight eight hours.. or nine hundred and fourteen point one two days.. or two point five.. years.." She trailed off as she watched the disbelief on Chakotay's face morph to anger. Unconsciously, she took a step back from him, watching his fingers curl his hands into fists at his sides.

"We're going to be here for _dos malditos años_ before they will even know we are missing?" His voice was deadly quiet, his eyes closed as he gulped again.

A wave of nausea rolled over Seven, and she plopped down into the sand, curling her knees to her chest. As she sat, she went over the numbers again- double and triple checking. Maybe she made a mistake. Please, let it be a mistake.. The same numbers came up.

It wasn't a mistake.

With a hissed breath, the Commander turned around, his arms crossing over his chest as he stalked back to the raft's rope that was slowly being pulled into the water with the current. Reaching down, he wrenched the cable up from the sand, nearly yanking the nose of the raft down into the water with the force. Quickly he held the rope above his head, keeping the makeshift float from taking on water and ruining what few- and now quite precious- supplies they had.

Still curled on the cool beach, Seven watched Chakotay yank up a handful of reeds and throw them into the water, kicking every raised bit of sand like it had done him some wrong, and cursing under his breath in English and Spanish. A particularly solid bit of wood washed up along the bank didn't give as easily as the dunes of sand, and he let out an angry growl before reaching down and flipping it back into the water. The blonde had never observed this kind of behavior from adults before. She had seen a handful of tantrums from Naomi Wildman here and there, but the girl was not prone to them. This was an entirely new beast.

Four minutes and thirty feet away he spun back to her, the hand not holding the cable balled in a fist around the latest bunch of green reed that had made the mistake of growing so close to his path. "Well? Are you coming or not?!" he yelled back to her. "We're stuck here for two pinche years with a bunch of scalp you- rape you- murder you- fucking natives! _¿Por qué estás sentado allí?!_ "

Seven's eyes widened in surprise, but his voice kicked her into gear. She scrambled up to her feet, grabbing the tricorder as she did so, and then jogged after him. When he was sure she was following, he turned back to lead, jerking the raft along beside them.

 **XXX**

 **Translations:**

 **¿Qué significa eso?!- "What's the significance?"  
¿QUÉ?- "WHAT?"  
dos malditos años- two fucking years  
pinche- expletive  
¿Por qué estás sentado allí?!- What are you waiting for?!  
**

 **Love it? Hate it? Tell me in a review!**

 **~LM**


	5. Chapter 5

**AUTHOR'S NOTES: Hello and welcome to chapter 5 of Happenstance! I know.. it's been a long time coming. Real life just gets in the way sometimes. Thanks so much to Scifiromance and Starshine for helping me stay the course to FINALLY crank this chapter out, and of course, for letting me tell them a story. Thank you as well to all my readers and my reviewers! I'm glad so many people have enjoyed this idea as much as I. I can't wait until we are about thirty chapters in... So many directions for this fic to go!**

 **OBLIGATORY LEGALITIES: Don't own them, never will, no money made- trust me on that one.**

 **ENJOY!**

 **~Lady Mage**

 **XXX**

 _Happenstance: noun: 1. A chance happening or event. 2. Coincidence._

 **XXX**

Someone was crying.

The soft, distressed sound was just enough to rouse him from the fog of hazy half-dreams. Full, restful sleep had eluded him since they had left the shuttle two days ago. Both the cold at night and the crushing reality of their foreseeable future was enough to keep anyone awake. Add in the threat of violent natives that had no qualms raping or killing strangers and Chakotay wasn't sure that he would ever achieve full sleep again- not on this planet anyway.

Deep down, he knew that life was going to be rough on this planet. He also knew they were going to be stuck for.. what had she said? Two and a half years? Probably longer than that, if he was honest with himself. Even if Voyager did make it to where they had been lost, it would take time to discover what had happened to them- or how it happened to them. There would be scan after scan after scan to decide if they could be salvaged or not. Then after all of that, they still had to figure out just how to go about doing it. Meanwhile, they had no shuttle to protect them- no locked hatch, no thick metal walls.

At this moment, they were stuck in the cold woods in a one man tent on a tiny bedroll that was just thick enough to protect them from the rocky ground beneath. The tent itself was a bright, cheery Starfleet blue and white. Seven had suggested they toss branches and leaves over top of it to try to camouflage themselves from potentially blood-thirsty eyes, but then they had a potential fire hazard to worry over while they attempted sleep each night.

"Chakotay..?"

The contemplative mood left him as he turned to see the sleeping form beside him. Seven's pale face was beside his shoulder. The glow of dying embers at the foot of their tent was almost enough to illuminate her features. Huddled together beneath the silver emergency blankets, he could only make out the curve of her cheekbones, the hollows of her eye sockets, and where her chin was jutted into the side of his arm. She was obviously still asleep. For a moment he wondered if she was dreaming about him. What was going on in that blonde head of hers?

"Seven." he whispered, turning his body towards hers. "Seven?"

The dusky rose of her lips turned down into a pout as her eyebrows drew together, altering the shape of the shadows on her face. Her breathing began to speed up as her eyelids fluttered. "..hmm?" she whimpered.

With a sigh, he reached out and tucked an loose strand of blonde away from her cheek. "Seven." At his touch, she startled awake- electric blue eyes opening wide and circling the dark tent for unknown enemies before turning her face to his. "Hey, it's just me." he said quietly, focusing in the dark until he could make her face out. She looked scared, her bottom lip trembling twice before she sucked it between her teeth to still it.

At their feet, the embers popped, a bit of charred wood knocking over as the piece under it grew brittle enough to no longer support it. Seven jerked at the sound, whipping around as if she expected to see an ominous shadow cross over their tent. When one didn't readily appear, she sat up and cradled her head in her hands as she drew her knees up to her chest. Chakotay sat up beside her and put his hand on her shoulder, finding it trembling. "Hey, you're okay. Did you have a nightmare?"

"What? No." she answered defensively.

"Everyone has nightmares sometimes, Seven." he said with a roll of his eyes. He gave her back a friendly pat as he watched the embers just past the mouth of the tent. As the bit of wood that had fallen over decided to catch, a sliver of flame began to dance above it. "It's normal. Human."

The expression on her face was obviously not impressed, even in the darkness. He suppressed a chuckle as she let out another long, cleansing breath. "It is not.. pleasant." she murmured. Cold was beginning to seep into her body now that she was no longer curled up beneath the blanket. A shiver shuddered its way down her frame, clicking her teeth together before she could force them tightly closed.

"No.. they usually aren't." agreed Chakotay, catching the shiver as one of his own trilled up his spine. "It's cold. Lay back down." A gentle tug on her arm had her complying without complaint. As cold as it felt, he was sure she was just as happy as he was to get back beneath the covers. The dying fire at their feet did very little to heat the tent, but they couldn't risk anything bigger that would draw attention. With the blonde ex-drone settled beside him on their makeshift bed, he pulled the silver blankets up to their chins. "Scoot back."

Seven turned to look at him over her shoulder, her vision still sharp enough to see the little details of his face through her enhanced eye. His eyes were unfocused, blinded by the lack of light in the tent, but still intent on the direction of her face. She traced the outline of his tattoo once before catching herself, turning to the tent as she felt her face heat in the cold, letting him settle against her back beneath the blankets. "As you wish."

"I do." he shivered, hunkering down behind her. For a second, he was glad that it was Seven and not Tom that had become stuck down here with him. Somehow he didn't think Tom would have been quite as magnanimous about having to share his body heat. The thought of a severely put-out Tom was enough to quirk his lips into a smirk, lightening his mood until another shiver wormed through him. "We are going to have to come up with some kind of shelter. Fast."

"I concur." she whispered, watching the burgeoning fire at their feet begin to cast a few shadows across the inside of the tent. The tent wall was too thin to offer protection from anything beyond a light rain. They may as well have been sleeping in the open for all the good it would do them if the aggressive natives were to stumble across their little camp. The next shiver that ran along her spine had little to do with the cold. Shamelessly, she scooted back closer to him and the warmth he could provide her.

"This isn't the first time I've been marooned." he said, tamping the surprise of her plastering her back against his chest with distracting conversation. "Back several years ago, the Captain and I had to be left on a planet because of a virus we caught while the ship was enjoying some shore leave-"

"New Earth?" she guessed, turning her head back to see him over her shoulder. She could make out his raised eyebrow in the dark. Sheepishly, she added, "I read your and the Captain's reports on the planet when I.. well, once I had access to ship's records. The Borg knew of the pathogen. It was a great risk to contact the Vidiians for assistance."

Chakotay snorted. "Would it have been any safer to contact the Borg?"

His companion shook her head. "No."

"Anyway, we had to rough it there." He cut himself off. "Not this much, mind you. We had shelter and a replicator and.. well, that's besides the point." One arm snaked over her waist, the hand flattening on the bedroll in front of her instead of against her stomach. "The point is, I thought I was going to be spending the rest of my life on that planet, and was prepared to do it. I made mistakes there that I don't intend to repeat here." He sighed, settling in as she turned her face back towards the tent wall. "We have it harder here. This is truly roughing it. We should find a place downriver.. find or make a clearing up out of sight somewhere, and build shelter."

"How far?" she asked quietly. "We need to be able to periodically access the subspace beacon on the shuttle. It must be maintained."

"Not too much farther. Far enough that we don't think those natives will have any interest in us. But.. a day's walk or so wouldn't be a bad idea. You know.. we could strip a lot of resources from the shuttle for shelter."

"Explain."

An almost wistful smirk crossed his features in the darkness. "I told Kathryn I was thinking of building a log cabin on that planet. When I was a young man, my father insisted I learn how. I spent a couple of summers being drug along with him to this outpost or that one.. jungles on Earth and the coldest bits of.." The memories were painful- a willful, ungrateful teen fighting with an equally willful father just trying to pass on the traditions of their people.

Seven's quiet voice pulled him out of the memory. "How would you construct a log cabin?"

"You fell logs and then stack them into a cabin." he answered simply. He could practically feel her roll her eyes. "There's more to it than that, of course. A rectangle would be easy enough. The two of us could have a simple one built inside of a week."

"A week?"

"But we still have to find a place to put it." His hand migrated to rest just beneath her ribs while he distractedly tried to line out his plans. "Maybe we can find a place up the mountain."

"We need a steady water source." Seven whispered, the majority of her attention on his hand. She wondered why its presence alone was enough to warm her from the inside out, relaxing muscles in her back tired of tensing. "We should.. stay within walking distance.. of the river."

Bobbing his head slowly in a sleepy nod, he agreed. "Yeah.. We will begin scouting out a spot tomorrow. The sooner we find a place and begin, though, the better."

A small yawn parted her lips. "If the weather patterns continue the way the tricorder has predicted," She couldn't help but to curl down, drawing her knees up to conserve heat. "We are headed towards winter. Since we cannot predict how varying the weather will be on this planet- let alone on this continent- I do not know how difficult the winters can be."

"If the snow on that mountain is anything to go by.. it's likely to get pretty cold."

"..yes."

"Right. So we need some kind of shelter so we can start trying to store up whatever we can forage. Those potatoes that grow near the water, their stalks, maybe their leaves.. Maybe we can find edible nuts or seeds or berries of some sort. How far into autumn do you think we are?"

"Maybe.. the middle of October? The end of October? That is, if this planet goes by a similar cycle to Earth." She could feel him nod behind her, his breath blowing heat down the gap between her borrowed shirt and the nape of her neck. "I can have the tricorder extrapolate-"

"In the morning." he mumbled. "We should sleep while we can.. Hike tomorrow.. Scout.."

"Mm." As he slipped into sleep behind her, his whole body relaxed, pressing his weight against her back. The feeling was.. comforting. Warm. Within minutes, she, too, was fast asleep.

 **XXX**

The next morning it was Seven who woke first, blue eyes slitting open to take in the first rays of light as they slowly illuminated the inside of their tent. Her vision was partially obscured by the blanket over Chakotay's chest, the silver rising and falling with his breathing. Drowsily becoming more aware, she realized she was stretched out along the length of him, her thigh thrown over his and his arm cushioning her head while its hand curled around her shoulders- his fingertips dangling limply over her breastbone.

Outside, the call of another black bird sent a startled shiver down her spine. From far away, their caw sounded more like a bloody murder scream than a screech. Beside her, Chakotay snorted a little snore before rolling onto his side to face her, the arm beneath her head curling tighter around her shoulders. Apparently comfortable, Chakotay let out a yawn, smacking his lips before settling back down into a deep sleep.

A scarlet blush rose up Seven's neck, painting her face red as it heated her skin. When his arm loosened, she carefully slipped out of its clutch. Slowly, she pulled her knee from between his, and sat up, pushing the blankets back down over him. Free, she crawled to the end of the tent and its cooling campfire, pausing only to give his peacefully sleeping face one last look. His temper had began to abate, his mood lighter yesterday and last night than it had been, but she still felt it would take a while before she was no longer walking on eggshells around him.

Of course, on Voyager, she had never seen his supposed Latin temper firsthand. In fact, before, she never would have cared much either way. Emotions were irrelevant, and reacting to a situation with anger over logic was.. well.. With this new slew of emotions the Doctor had unleashed upon her, she wasn't really sure what she felt- let alone could process it enough to realize what _he_ felt. The skill set for empathy had only partially been taught to her, and she lacked the intuitiveness necessary to read him like a book despite her more frequent studying of him- one more deficiency due to her time as a drone. There was no need to be intuitive as a drone when you already knew exactly what everyone was thinking.

Just as she was thinking that perhaps that was one almost positive aspect of the Borg- that there was no guessing game to what was going on around you- a black bird's bloody murder screech rang out from up the mountain behind them. Seven's eyes were quick to circle their small camp for any crouching danger, her silver-laced hand over her heart as though that could slow its startled thumping. This cold sweat fear was getting old. But of course she was afraid. They were only roughly sixty kilometers from the hostile natives, they had no hope of rescue or assistance for a period of at least two and a half years, and they had extremely limited supplies and unknown- if any- resources. If the shuttle hadn't been so utterly destroyed, they could have made somewhat of a secure shelter inside it. For now, Chakotay's log cabin idea would have to do.

She racked her memory bank for images of log cabins, and came up short. The only memory she had of anything resembling a log cabin was from a picture in Voyager's history logs. She had paused on the image mainly because a certain bunching of wildflowers caught her eye.. some niggling memory trying to pull its way to the forefront of her mind before she silenced it and moved on. Vaguely, now she wondered what that memory had been, but it was no longer forthcoming.

 **XXX**

As cold as the nights were, the days were still warm enough to bring the sweat out across Chakotay's tattooed brow. Having to fight with the damned raft to pull it along the occasionally jagged water's edge certainly didn't help. Gone were the long sandy beaches. Now they walled along sheer dirt banks anywhere from a few inches above the water to a meter or more. The land was becoming more inclined as they hiked, hills beginning to rise up towards the mountain. In the valley of the hills were the same sandy beaches, but as the ground rose up, so did the little cliffs that made the riverbank- as if the river had not formed there naturally but had been cut there with a knife. The woods grew closer to the water here, offering them a little cover should they run into more natives, and a bit of a reprieve from the warm light.

The tanned Commander grunted as the raft seemed to catch, jerking his shoulder that the rope rested over. "Damnit.." he muttered, turning back to assess their float. It wouldn't do to capsize from hitting some- "What the-?"

The raft had been loaded down with their belongings- his overnight bag, his PADDs, their first aid kit, the folded tent- but now its contents lay hidden beneath a blanket of green stalks and leaves attached to several purple potatoes. He balked, dumbfounded, as another purple missile was tossed atop the pile, further weighing down their resources.

"Chakotay?" Seven took in the wide-eyed stare as Chakotay stopped to survey the raft. When he turned his face to look at her, he stared like a man betrayed.

"Are you _trying_ to sink the raft?!" he asked incredulously, but his voice was underlined with the quick anger Seven had become more and more familiar with lately.

Seven drew her brows together. "Sink? Of course not." she answered, stepping up to the edge of the bank to see the pile of edible vegetation she had added to their things. "I am merely adding to our meager food stores with the only food source we have found on this planet so far." It wasn't as though she had added all of it to their raft- only what she could not carry. Twenty-two stalks were clutched in her free hand like a flowerless bouquet, and another twenty were tucked into the bag that held her portable regen unit, a few tools, and the scraps of her ruined biosuit.

"This thing is heavy enough with just our stuff on it, Seven." said Chakotay, dropping the rope from his shoulder to give it a roll. "You can't add too much to it or it will-"

"I am quite familiar with the idea of Archemedes' principle of buoyancy." Seven crossed her arms over her chest, then dropped them as the potato leaves tickled her chin. "I would not add so much as to sink the raft!"

Chakotay sighed in annoyance. "This thing is hard enough to pull along without a sack of potatoes on top of it." He massaged the bridge of his nose with one aching hand.

Seven set her jaw. "If you want to carry these things, then I will pull the-"

"No, I'll-"

"-raft along to give-"

"-pull it. You carry-"

"-you a-"

"-that stuff. I'm fine."

"-break."

The Commander scowled. "I don't need a break. You just carry that stuff and I will carry this." He grabbed up the rope and spun from her, giving the raft a yank. He turned his scowl on her over his shoulder. "Don't throw any more damn potatoes on it."

She very nearly stamped her foot, quickly shoving the potatoes- stalks, leaves, and all- into her bag with the rest. "Excuse me for trying to keep up from starving to death before we get the lovely chance to freeze to death!"

"We aren't going to freeze to death!" he asserted, continuing on along the river towards where the banks became beaches again- even if there was hardly any sand to speak of. He muttered under his breath as he yanked the rope again. "There's a whole slew of things that would kill us long before then- _pinche_ natives being at the top of the list."

The ex-drone immediately paled at the reminder, all the blood draining out of her face. She swept her eyes along the treeline they had just passed, assuring herself- however weakly- that they were not obviously being followed. As a chill ran down her spine, she scurried after Chakotay, nearly bumping into his back in her haste to reach his side.

Chakotay glanced at her beside him, noting the pallor of her skin and the wide grey-blue eyes. A streak of shame shot through him. "Hey.." he said quietly, "We are gonna be fine. There's been no sign of any of those natives since we left the shuttle, and we are a long way away from it. Maybe they don't come this way at all- that mesa might be the edge of their territory."

Seven swallowed with a stilted nod. "Perhaps."

He reached out and took her empty hand with his. "They aren't going to get you. I promise. We will find a little place somewhere, make a little base, and ride this out until we are rescued." The hand in his fluttered away, that pink blush bleeding up Seven's pale throat. He almost smirked, stopping himself at the last second. "Think of it as a really long camping trip."

"My.. camping trips never end well."

"Well.. mine do. So we even out." Chakotay shrugged.

Seven snorted. "If you say so."

 **XXX**

The sky was beginning to turn from a bright light blue to a soft pink as the sun made its way behind the mountain range to the west of them. The heat of the day was beginning to cool, and the relief seemed to awaken a choir of softly humming bugs hidden somewhere in the underbrush. The sound reminded Chakotay of a Terran cricket, chirping for a mate. The stretch of river they were on now had very little sand for its beaches. The dark brown earth and light grey clay reached nearly to the water. Out in the expanse of water, fish splashed, and insects glided, adding their music to the evening's ambiance. If he pretended hard enough, Chakotay could mistake this world for home.

Beside him, Seven readjusted the bag strap over her shoulder, letting out a little sigh of relief as the throb beneath it dulled down once the pressure was removed. Chakotay turned his head at the sound, amused by it. He'd never heard her let out so much as a grunt of exertion before. He supposed that it was a habit likely to change. The next two years were going to be hard. Glancing at the pile of purple potatoes the blonde had thrown on top of their belongings drew a line of guilt across his mood. Misplaced anger seemed to be a symptom of their being marooned, and neither of them deserved it.. especially when one of them was really trying to help.

"Ready for a rest?" he asked, turning back to Seven. "We should look for a place to set up the tent for the night." Between them, his stomach growled. "...and I could use one of those potatoes..."

At the noise, a little smirk drew over Seven's face. "It's a good thing we suddenly have so many." When he stuck his tongue out in her direction, she chuckled.

He stopped first, letting the rope drop from his shoulder down to hang loosely at his side. The weight of the day- the long hours hiking and pulling their supplies- settled heavily on his shoulders as he stopped the forward momentum that had kept the tiredness at bay. Seven took a few steps more to another sprouting of potatoes, crouching down and rooting through the thick stalks with her enhanced hand. The other hand spread out on the last dusting of sand before the dark brown earth took over, keeping her balance. Beyond her, tall grass and a tangle of bushes lead up a little hill into the treeline. The underbrush looked dense enough to hide their bright tent from prying eyes, and the trees were tall and their leaves thick, shading the area beneath.

Just as Chakotay was about to open his mouth, Seven pressed a clump of potatoes by the stalks into his hands. "Huh?"

"I will be right back." she said, dusting her hands off on her hips before setting the bags she carried down at his feet. She began to turn from him, her eyes searching the bushes for a path into the treeline as she drew her bottom lip between her teeth.

Chakotay nodded, thinking he could use a bathroom break himself. "Oh. Okay." When she glanced back at him, he could plainly see that she was nervous- a bout of separation anxiety he had been observing in her since that unpleasant night in the mesa caves. He tried to give her a reassuring smile. "I'll watch our stuff. You go first." For a moment, she looked as though she may say something, but turned silently to the bushes and began to pick her way through them.

The Commander watched her disappear into the woodline near the top of the hill as he let the rope slip from his fingers to rest on the ground near his feet. Deep down, he knew that if he wasn't careful, his temper was going to get the best of him. A few deep breaths and a long, yawning stretch did wonders for his mood, helping him center his thoughts while he waited.

Up the hill, Seven wove through the underbrush as silently as possible, her eyes quick to scan her surroundings and her ears tuned to listen to the slightest noise that could spell their undoing. Once she made it up the incline, the ground leveled off and the underbrush thinned as the canopy of trees overhead stole up all the light for themselves. Wandering a little farther in, the trees became sparse, the space between them beginning to widen. Ahead, something pitch black loomed, chucking her heart up into her throat in startled fear for a few painful beats. A second look brought a bright blush over her face. The black was merely a cliff face jutting out of the ground several hundred feet from her. "Irrelevant." she whispered to herself, stepping forward. After that scare, her bladder was screaming at her. Quickly, she picked a bush and made for it.

The black cliff face had caught her attention and most definitely required inspection now. As soon as she had her pajama pants tied back around her waist, she made her way over to the cliff. Leaning her head back, she tried to see where the top of the cliff cut across the sky. The tree tops obscured her vision, but she estimated it to be several hundred feet up. There was an almost handmade quality to the cliff face. Black dirt bricks messily frosted with bright green moss stacked all the way up, the color contrast surreal and striking. Curious, she reached out and carefully ran one fingertip over a patch of green. The moss was warm from the light hitting it, and slightly damp as if there had recently been rain. As she let her whole hand rest on the warm green, she could smell the earth behind it- like rain and mud and.. how did she know what rain or mud smelled like? It didn't matter- she just did.

A small smile turned the corners of her mouth up as she leaned back to take in the woods around her. There was something about this place- this second in time- that was pleasant. The worries of the day seemed to melt down to pool at her feet. The furrow of her brow, the anxious tension in her face and back, eased as she let her posture relax. A black bird screamed somewhere up the cliff, but she couldn't be bothered to care. The smell of earth and green was too heady- too distracting.

"Seven!"

The peaceful calm was shattered by Chakotay's yell. The anxiety that had lessened slammed full force back into her, running like channel locks up her back until it throbbed with her jolted heartbeat from the base of her neck down to the bottom of her tailbone. She had whirled around as something crashed behind her, eyes wide as dinner plates. Chakotay stumbled past the bushes at the top of the hill. "Chakotay?"

His eyes found her, standing half turned to the large, dark stone and mud wall. He couldn't help but follow its height up to the treetops- its length side to side, stretching out well past his sight. It was immense. "You okay?" he called a little lamely. She'd really only been gone a few minutes, and didn't it usually take girls longer to pee than boys? The blonde had been so attached to his side over the past five days.. was he developing his own sense of separation anxiety?

Instead of teasing him, Seven only nodded, her hand dropping from the soft moss. "I am fine."

"Okay. Uh, good." he said. "Just checking."

Seven drew her brows together in concern. "Are.. you okay?"

"Me? Oh, I'm fine." Ochre eyes dropped, circling the clearing again as he dropped the folded up tent and made his way over to his companion. "Just tired. Figured we could go ahead and make camp."

"As you wish."

Chakotay looked up into the sky, his eyes squinting in the bright beam of sunlight hitting the cliff face, giving his surroundings appraising consideration. The cliff was so tall that a fall from even halfway up would be bound to break a few bones if not fatal, and it stretched on for a good long while- as far as his eyes could follow it- so that no attackers could come from at least that direction. The treetops overhead would cut some of the rain, and the water would continue to drain on down the hill to the river. The trees were as thick around as a human head so they would be easy to fell, carry, and build with. After a second of taking in the dark dirt, the slope, and the woods around them, he turned back to Seven. "Hey, why not put it here?"

Seven nodded, beginning to turn towards where he had come from. "I will retrieve the tent. We can place it-"

"No. Why not here?"

Seven crinkled her nose, confused. "Here? What?"

"The cabin." he elaborated. "Why not build the cabin here. Seems a good spot, don't you think?" He pointed behind them. "Close to water. Cliff is a natural defense. We can build the cabin right up beside it. Plenty of woods here to cull the lumber and to cut firewood from." He gestured to the little pathway they had traipsed up from the river. "And all that brush hides the way up here from the water, so if anyone came along, they wouldn't outright see it."

For a moment, she eyed the clearing like it was the first time she had seen it. "You.." She chewed her bottom lip for a heartbeat. "We are far enough from the mesa?"

"We are a good day away from it, aren't we? Close enough to go back and strip out some resources.. maintain the beacon.. Take us a good day to walk there, camp and brind out supplies back."

She scowled. "Camp? What if the natives are there?"

"Then we turn around, come back, and think of something else, Seven." he answered, reaching out and putting a heavy hand on her shoulder. "We could keep walking for mile and miles and not find a spot as good as this, Seven, and the farther we are from the shuttle, the more an ordeal it is going to be to check the beacon."

There was a logic to his argument, but it didn't make the squirming snake in her belly still. Something about changing from moving away from the mesa to settling stationary didn't sit well with her. Of course they couldn't keep running forever. Eventually they would have to stop and start preparing for the two or more year sentence they were now serving. She had very little in the way of survival skills, but if Chakotay thought this was a good spot... A shuddering sigh breezed past her lips before she met his eyes. With a nod, she murmured, "As you wish."

 **XXX**

 **Love it? Hate it? Tell me in a review!**

 **~LM**


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Notes: Welcome to Chapter 6 of Happenstance! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Thanks so much to Starshine and Scifiromance for letting me tell them a story! Bit of a shorter chapter than usual, but it hit a natural stopping point. Next chapter will be about twice as long!**

 **Thank you so much to all my reviewers! Lately, I've received several Guest reviews, and they've all been just lovely, but there's no way for me to respond to you if you haven't signed in. So, if you have left me a guest review, just know that you made my day and I am so pleased that you have been enjoying my story!**

 **XOXO,**

 **~LM**

 **Obligatory Legalities: Don't own it. No money made.**

 **XXX**

 _Happenstance: noun: 1. A chance happening or event. 2. Coincidence._

 **XXX**

The light from the white dwarf and it's surrounding gasses seemed to keep a generally constant level of brightness during the nights. If they changed like the phases of Terra's moon, he couldn't tell one night from another in terms of visibility. Luckily, for the most part, it was visible. It was dark enough to hide in but bright enough to keep from tripping over your own feet and every tree root and potato patch from the clearing they had chosen back to the shuttle for supplies. As long as they followed the river they would find their way to and from, but since it was definitely safer to stay in the wood line, it was nice to not fall flat on your face every five feet.

Seven had taken hold of his hand an hour ago when they stepped around a particularly woody bit of brush and had yet to drop it. It had been hard enough talking her into returning to the shuttle. If holding his hand was grounding, then it was a bit of comfort he was willing to give as long as she was willing to take it. There were several reasons- logical reasons- for her fear and his undeniable hesitation, but the shuttle held valuable resources that they couldn't do without. He planned on stripping cord and wire, and maybe eventually stripping out decking or plating to use towards the cabin they were going to build. This trip was a definite necessity- it could easily make or break their survival.

They had made good time- at least, he thought they had. By Seven's calculations, they should be able to hike the thirty-two miles back in roughly eleven hours or so with breaks. It had been nine the last time he asked her how long they had been walking. The sun had been ready to set when they had headed out. The sky should be bright and the air heated not long after they reached their destination, and that suited him just fine. He would much rather sneak in and sneak out of their shuttle in case the violent natives were still lurking about.

"Chakotay." Seven gave his arm a little tug, effectively halting his progress. When he turned to look at her face, she gestured ahead of them.

Their shuttle was barely visible- only by the glinting of nebulae light on the still shiny outer hull- a good mile down the beach. He could have mistaken it for a rock in the distance if not for the outline of the tall swiss cheese mesa beyond it. "How long has it been?"

"Ten hours and thirty-six minutes."

"Oh.. Well, good. That's better than you said we would do."

"We hurried." she murmured.

He snorted. "How often do we need to check the beacon?"

"Once a month should suffice. I will have to replace the battery cell every three months."

He scowled. "Where are we going to get new batteries every three months for two years?"

She scowled right back at him. "We can recharge them."

"How?"

The blonde sighed, turning her eyes from his back to the shuttle. "I believe I can take one of the solar panels from the shuttle's wing and use it to do so."

"Wait, so we can use it to charge things? Like PADDs?" he asked. If they could have PADDs then maybe this wouldn't be such a bad trip. At the very least he could catch up on all his reading, and they would be able to keep logs. The idea of having to cobble together two years into one report once the Captain reclaimed them was not a fun one, and he was sure she would want a big bite out of this pie. She hadn't exactly despised their time spent on New Earth. Not that he had, either, but his reasons were more resignation to a lifestyle he had thought he would never need, and the lessening resentment of a father who had forced the now useful knowledge into his brain as a teenager.

"We should be able to charge all our devices. The phaser, PADDs, tricorders." she answered. Tucking a whisping strand of hair behind one ear, she was the first to step forward- both eager to get there and eager to leave as quickly as possible. "Let's go."

 **XXX**

Seven dropped the handful of cable again, barely containing the startled screech trying to escape her mouth. Every little noise sent a shot of red-hot panic through her- a lightning bolt of painful sensation from her neck down to numb her toes and back up. The eagerness to get here had long wore off. Now she counted tasks and minutes until they could leave again. She shot a heated glance back at Chakotay on his knees behind her.

"Sorry." Chakotay mumbled sheepishly, picking up the tangle of dropped wire.

A calming breath almost centered her nerves. It wasn't a band of natives sneaking up on her- only Chakotay, and he would never harm her. "It's fine. I'm just-" Guilt prickled her, draining the scowl out of her features. "I'm sorry, I-"

"You don't have to explain it." he said, his tone only slightly pacifying.

She bit her tongue to keep from spilling any more of her newly fragile emotions at his feet. Instead of replying, she only nodded acceptance before turning back to complete her task. The sooner they were finished, the sooner they could leave for the clearing again. She lifted the cables and shoved them into her bag.

Chakotay watched her for a moment more, his jaw set and brows drawn in worry. By now, he could tell she was so on edge that even a kind word from him would set her off. She wasn't the only one tensely trying to finish up. His palms were wet with sweat. He could feel it beading up on his forehead, tickling the nape of his neck as it gathered and ran down to absorb into the wet neckline of his grey shirt.

The pile of cables wound behind him, yards and yards of it. Gingerly, he added his handful to the pile. Best not to poke the blonde bear working haphazardly ahead of him. The amount of cable they had managed to strip in just a few short hours amazed him. The Val Jean had been several times the size of this shuttle, and he wasn't sure it had contained even half this much wire. There must be kilometers of it here, woven and braided and coiled, neatly bound with little clamps to keep it organized and free of tangles. Tom had practically written his name on every cable just as B'Elanna had on each circuit. He almost felt bad for gutting it.

Another little red wire slowly came away from the tube it was running through and into Seven's firm grip. She knew this particular bit of cable ran a good three meters from beneath the helm around behind it to link the main console to the opps, and its connection should be easy to tease away without having to cut open half the wall to get it. If she just applied the right amount of gentle tension, the weld holding the little bit of metal to the motherboard would eventually weaken under the stress and snap free, leaving her with a good length of cord. A bead of sweat ran down the side of her face. " _..Helvete.._ "

Chakotay looked up at the sound of her whisper, watching her carefully loop a length of cable around her metal-laced pointer finger and continue to slowly pull. Realizing she hadn't spoken to him, directly, he turned back to his own task.

Seven gave the cable another gentle tug, and nearly rocked back off of her haunches as the wire snapped instead of breaking free, leaving her with less than a meter of the wire and a goose egg on her temple from knocking it on the console beside her. " _VAD FAN?_ " she hissed in frustration.

Behind her, Chakotay nearly jumped out of his skin as Seven's voice echoed in the cockpit. He spun back around to her in time to see her shove her bundle of wires away, reaching into the tube she had been working on as far as she could and yanking a handful of wires out with her stronger left hand. " _Que chingados, chica?!_ " he wheezed, his heart thumping loudly in his ears.

" _DE NADA._ " Seven practically growled, dropping the newly aquired wires at her feet and roughly reaching in for more, caring not for length or order but only in finishing this insufferable task. " _Helvete!_ "

"Chica, what language are you speaking?" Chakotay asked, letting his hands fall to his lap as he watched the scene before him.

"Several." Another handful.

"Yeah, I get the Terran standard and the Spanish, but what-"

Seven reached back into the tube. "It's Swedish."

Chakotay scowled, taken aback. Though, honestly, he'd never given much thought to nationalities. The majority of his friends and all of his family had been colony kids- a mashup melting pot where such things didn't matter any more- but Terrans were different. "Swedish? You're Swedish?"

"I am Borg." Seven harumphed, adding another tangle to her pile.

He rolled his eyes. "Piss." he cursed, gathering her attention. She glanced back at him over her shoulder. "You're not any more Borg than I am Maquis." At the spark of hurt that crossed her features, he knew she had taken his words the wrong way even as he marveled at the show of emotion.

Seven whipped back around to face her task. ' _I thought we had worked beyond this.._ '

The hand Chakotay put on her arm was heavy, and hot with the heat in the shuttle. He gently pulled her to look back at him. "Hey," He waited until she was looking at him again before he continued. "There are no more Maquis. They were all either killed or captured."

"Unfortunately.. there are still Borg.."

"Yeah.." he admitted. "But none here." His hand slid off her arm, falling back to his side. "Okay?"

Seven turned back away from him, but nodded once. "Okay."

That squared away, Chakotay could return to the lattice of wire he was trying to unweave. The mess was going to take a while. Still, his interest was piqued. "So.. your parents- your aunt- your first language.. was Swedish?"

"...yes." Seven murmured, frowning down at the mess she had made. Damned emotions. "My aunt Irene still lives in Gothenburg.. and taught in one of the colleges there."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yes." she answered, a little shy. "I have read.. that Gothenburg has several colleges. The Federation runs one.. but Aunt Irene taught at the liberal arts college. They still hold film festivals there- a long tradition that goes back to the 1900's."

"What did she teach?" Chakotay asked as a creaking noise wheedled its way into his attention. He craned his neck to look back into the aft and through the scar, scanning the beach he could see through the jagged hole. "Did she teach.. creative writing or.." The creaking sound came again. What was making that noise? He leaned farther forward, his eyes sweeping the beach closer towards the great swiss-cheese mesa, then widened in horrified surprise.

"She taught-" Seven's voice was cut off as Chakotay lunged for her, one hand clamping over her mouth to silence her, and the other winding around her waist to pull her back with him against the paneled wall. The frightened squeak was muffled under his hand before she turned her face from his hand. "Chakotay, what-?!"

"SHHH!" he hissed, clamping his hand back as he tried to lean forward again to see. "Be quiet!" Again, he leaned forward until he could just see the scar around the archway separating the cockpit from the aft, hoping that his eyes had played tricks on him. They hadn't. He loosened his grip on Seven, feeling a little guilty as she drew in a lungful of air that his hand had prevented her from taking. " _Mira._ " he whispered.

Seven wiped the tickle from her nose his hand had left, leaning up around his chest to see the scar. Outside, approximately one hundred and fifty yards up the beach, a group of natives were walking along the river. Her whole body froze, taut as a bow string, eyes wide and heart stuttering in her chest. Several of the men were sharing the weight of two long white poles as big around as any of them were, resting on their shoulders as they marched. Those who weren't carrying the poles held tools and bundles of white leather. They walked with intention.

And they were heading this way.

"There's more."

Chakotay's whisper broke the spell, reminding Seven that the burn in her lungs was a plea for the breath of air that had rushed out of them at the sight of the natives. What was still was now shaking, her whole body vibrating. With a half-held in whimper, Seven turned and grabbed her bag, shouldering it and rushing to the door in a flurry of motion. "We must leave!"

"Seven!" Chakotay hissed a loud whimper, grabbing the blonde around the waist and pulling her down into his lap, his arms restraining her. "What do you think you're doing?!"

The blonde struggled in his arms, reminding him of her enhanced strength. "Let me go! Chakotay!" She managed to free herself, only to yelp as he yanked her back again, wrenching one hand up tight over her chest to hold just below her throat, the other cementing itself back around her small waist. "Chakotay-"

"We can't leave, Seven!" Chakotay whispered roughly. With her secured, he looked back around the corner, his eyes unable to count the number of humanoids heading their way. "They will see us if we try to leave now." At the least, he guessed a hundred- and they continued to come, marching into his line of sight through the scar. "We can't outrun them. Not all of them."

"But-"

"Shh! They will hear you!" he hissed into her ear. When she was quiet, he resumed his counting. A great horde was on the move. The men in the lead were dressed in the same white leather loincloths and breeches as they had been that night in the caves, some with colorful woven tunics or capes to protect their backs from the sun. Women followed along in the same breeches. Like the men, the women wore the tunics or capes while others walked topless. Some carried small children or infants in colorful slings or baskets covered in the same material. Children old enough to walk wore colorful ponchos, running and splashing in the edge of the river as they followed their parents along. Chakotay could only marvel along with his horror as his father's tales of their ancestors was come alive before him. Was this the society his father had longed to go back to?

"Chakotay.." Seven's voice was a distressed sound, soft and scared. Her hands were cupped over Chakotay's, poised to wrench from his hold. The count was up over a hundred now, and they were very nearly on top of them, a sea of dark eyes looking curiously at the wreckage of the shuttle. This could only end badly for her. This could only end badly for Chakotay. Why was she torn from the clutches of the Borg queen just to be raped and murdered- or worse, raped and kept- by these people? Damn Kathryn and her Starfleet ideal-

"Spirits, look at all of them.." Chakotay's whisper ran a shiver down both of their spines.

Behind the horde, a tree in the woodline was felled, letting out a loud creak as it leaned until its trunk could no longer stretch to compensate and snapped. As soon as it fell, a group of men came to it with axes, stripping the few limbs and relieving it of its bright green leaves before it was hoisted up like the others, and carried on down the beach.

"What do we do?" Seven whispered, watching a group of children not much smaller than Naomi chase one another back and forth along the water's edge, black braids flapping with their ponchos behind them in the wind. She could hear them giggling- a sound she was having difficulty equating to the danger she felt as she watched them. Beyond them, babies were crying, people were speaking to one another in their nonsensical language, and still others were singing as they swarmed.

"We don't have a choice.." Chakotay whispered. "Just have to wait them out."

"What if they are setting up camp?"

"..I don't know."

"Chako-"

"Shh!-"

"We can't stay here!"

"We have to!" Chakotay tightened his hold on her, shifting his lap so that she was more flush against him, feeling her shaking against his chest. "We can't just run out there in the middle of them. They'd shoot us down with their bows before we could make it to the woodline." He watched a group of men passing by, noting the bows slung over their shoulders and the quivers of long arrows hung at their hips. "Maybe they are just passing through."

Seven snorted, retorting in a hushed whisper. "Passing through? Oh, that's lovely! Then they would be headed to where we left our supplies!"

"Don't think like that."

"How am I supposed to think? They're-"

Finally just outside the shuttle, one of the natives made a loud noise, effectively gaining the attention of the others walking. A few seconds later, they could hear several taps on the edge of the shuttle, and the sound of sloshing footsteps into the water. Chakotay startled, shoving Seven out of his lap towards the helm console. "Hide!" Seven caught herself before she hit her face on the floor, scrambling ahead up under the console as she felt Chakotay follow her. None to gently, the commander shoved the blonde as far back as she could go before plastering his body to hers, putting them both out of sight of anyone who may look into the scar.

They could only guess at what was being said as they heard one male voice call out over the rest of them. Answering calls rang out from the horde, loud undulating war cries and sharp barking yips. Through the sliver of outside he could see through the scar from where he kept Seven hidden beneath the shadowed console, they were beginning to do something with the felled logs. Were they digging? He shimmied down enough to get a better look, powerless to do anything but watch as the natives began to construct something at the end of their shuttle.

 **XXX**

 **Love it? Hate it? Tell me in a review!**

 **~LM**

 **Translations:**

 **Helvete.. - Damnit..  
VAD FAN? - WHAT THE DEVIL?  
Que chingados, chica?! - What the fuck, girl?!  
DE NADA. - NOTHING.  
Mira. - Look  
**


	7. Chapter 7

**Greeting from The Lady Mage!**

 **Hello, and welcome to Chapter 7 of Happenstance! It's been a loooooooong time since I updated. I'm sorry! Life gets in the way sometimes, and it's been a long summer! (Bring on fall..) Anyway, thank you so much for your patience, and thank you so much for letting me tell you a story!**

 **Special thanks to my friends Scifiromance and Starshine! Couldn't do this without you! If you haven't checked out Scifiromance's author page, CHECK IT OUT!**

 **~The Lady Mage**

 **Obligatory Legalities: Don't own it. No money made. Funsies only!**

 **XXX**

 _Happenstance: noun: 1. A chance happening or event. 2. Coincidence._

 **XXX**

 *** _CLANG_ ***

Chakotay startled, both arms flailing out in surprise. Unfortunately, he was still hidden beneath the shadowed helm console, so one arm was trapped beside him and the other shot out to thunk painfully against the hard metal shielding their bodies, sending the phaser in his hand skittering across the floor. He grit his teeth, shaking the ache from his knuckles. " _Mierda._ " Behind him, he could feel Seven squirm, reacting to his movement, but she made no noise. He guessed that she must still be asleep. How had he possibly fallen asleep? Even with their overnight hike, they had rested and napped before heading out, and stopped here and there on the way. Where was the adrenaline to keep him awake and alert in a time of crisis?

Outside, the smell of roasting food was beginning to waft in- meat and potato and fire. Chakotay's stomach growled as his mouth watered. It had been closer to midnight since they had eaten last. It wasn't supposed to have taken them this long to grab their supplies and head back to the felled log they had hidden the tent under. The plan had been to get in, get out, and then go sleep the afternoon away up in the woods before heading back to their clearing. An armload of potatoes awaited them by the tent. Little use to them now, he supposed, swallowing.

Even salivating, his throat felt dry. The heat and humidity in the shuttle was overbearing, stealing all the moisture from his lips and eyes as he laid there. The thought that he hadn't been in such heat since he had last stood on Dorvan V's dusty soil was a painful one.

Behind him, Seven hummed as she stretched, slowly waking. "Still there?" she whispered, her voice thick and low with sleep.

"Still there." he confirmed softly. "By smell alone, I'd guess they were having a barbeque."

"Well, isn't that nice.." she grumbled, her own stomach growling in response.

Chakotay snorted, surprised. "I suppose it is." His humor bled away as he instantly felt five degrees hotter. Seven slid his discarded shirt up and wiped it across his chest. Just as he whipped his head around to complain it was pulled away, and used to wipe the sheen of sweat from her face. After shoving the shirt back down between them, she shimmied up to his side and put her head down on the dried patch of his chest. For two seconds, he anticipated the silver starburst on her cheek to be cold- he hoped it was if only to cool his over heated flesh where it touched. Instead, it was just as warm as the rest of her cheek, undistinguishable from the surrounding skin. When she didn't move, he whispered. "What are you doing?"

She sighed, turning her head to see out past him, unintentionally tickling his chin with her hair. "It is hot back here.. and I am finding it difficult to breathe.." She began to withdraw, internally cursing herself for her boldness.

Chakotay sighed, moving his arm up to hold her as she was. "Okay." he whispered. "It's just hot in here."

She hummed in agreement before turning her attention out to where the noises were still coming from. "What do you think they are doing? Besides barbequing?"

"I don't know. Building something, I think. I saw them pulling logs down the beach. Hopefully they aren't moving in." He felt her jerk at the suggestion, the hand splayed over his diaphragm spasming. "I'm sure they're just curious.. they will probably leave soon.."

She sighed again, seeing through his placating tone. "We will be long cooked by then."

He snorted. "Well, at least we can provide them a good snack before they go. Starfleet hospitality." He could feel her grin, her head barely shaking, one strand of cornsilk blonde swishing across his smirking lips. "I hope they choke on my bones."

"Here, here." She agreed. "Can you see anything now?"

"No." he whispered, "I'm gonna sneak down into the aft and-"

"You'll be seen!" The hand over his diaphragm grew heavy, gently holding him from moving. "We don't know what they will do if-"

"We can't stay in here like this forever." He turned his body to face her, making her scoot back against the wall. "I might be able to tell what they are doing, or if they are really setting up shop or not. You can stay up here if you want."

By his tone of voice, she knew she couldn't dissuade him. With a small sigh, she nodded, watching him turn back and shimmy out of their hidey-hole. At the last second, she reached out with her human hand and grabbed the fabric over his hip. "Be careful."

The Commander nodded, slipping free and easing up onto his haunches. At the archway between the aft and the cockpit, he slowly peeked around the corner. Dozens of natives still milled about on the beach, none of which were paying particular attention to the shuttle. Most were eating, men sitting in rows and women bringing them great hunks of browned meat and roasted purple potatoes on sticks. His stomach growled again as the breeze blew the smell his way.

Along the waterline, children continued to play, sat along the water's edge molding shapes into the sand, splashing about, and chasing one another. Now and then, one of the women would yell out to them, drawing them up to eat their dinner before setting them free again. They all looked relatively peaceful- just a tribe of people sharing a meal. Again, Chakotay could only watch in interested wonder. His father would be having a field day right now- taking notes and trying to make contact... and here he was cowering in a shuttle, watching his father's dream eat their dinner while he sat hungry.

"How many do-?"

Seven's voice washed over his head like a bucket of ice water, jump-starting his heart. He bit his tongue to keep from yelping in shock, whipping around to see her also surprised face as she stumbled back onto her backside. Chakotay leaned heavily against the archway, his face settling into a deep irritated scowl. "What?!" he hissed.

The chastised expression didn't last long on Seven's face. It wasn't as if she had purposefully tried to scare him. "How many natives do you see?"

" _¿Cuántos?_ " he spat. " _Un putaro de gente. ¿Qué quieres decir_ 'how many'?" He gestured irritably past him. " _Mira._ " Carefully, quietly, he moved down into the aft, keeping close to the wall. Watching the visible natives through the scar like a hawk, he crept up to it until he was plastered to the wall just beside it. He paused to glance back at Seven before he slowly turned his body so that he could get a better look outside without being seen.

There was at least a hundred people in his line of sight alone- not counting the ones on the other side of the shuttle or in the woods beyond. From his new vantage point, he could see towards the tail of their craft. Two of the white-barked trees were planted upright in the sand with smaller logs crossbeamed on top of them in a lattice. Over the lattice were several large white animal hides- perhaps the hides of the natives' lunch. Under the pergola structure's shade, several women were making quick work of a basket of some yellow roots the size of their hands, peeling its dark skin while they hummed the same tune.

The shrill laughter of a group of children drew his eyes back down the beach. Another white-barked pole was planted in the sand thirty yards from the pergola, but this one was on its own. Several of the tan-skinned children were circling it. More specifically, they were circling a man who was tied to the pole. This one was dressed differently from the others- without the white breeches or poncho or moccasin. Instead, he wore a blue woven loincloth and a green vest. His feet were wrapped with corded sandals, and his black hair was coiled on top of his head in a messy knot. The children were kicking sand at him. Others were throwing rocks. Several bleeding wounds pocked his skin, but nobody said a word in his defense.

"A prisoner?" Chakotay whispered.

Curious, Seven followed Chakotay's example, silently slipping along the wall until she was at his side. He leaned back enough that she could see around him. "Where?" she asked.

"Down the beach." he answered, "Tied up."

Seven spotted the man and observed the taunting children. "I see him. I wonder what he did."

" _No sé._ " the Commander shrugged. "He's different."

"Apparently, that's a crime in these parts." hissed the blonde.

"He's dressed different anyway." continued Chakotay. "Maybe he is from a neighboring tribe? A prisoner of war? Maybe he's one of them but he broke one of their laws and he is being punished. Who knows?"

Seven was quiet for a minute, watching the prisoner turn his head to avoid a face full of sand. When she spoke, it was so soft that Chakotay almost couldn't hear her over the tribe outside. "That could have been you."

The hairs on his arms prickled and stood on end. His nod was grim, his lips set in a line as he agreed with her. "Yes. It could have been." He felt her hand slip into his again, tugging him back towards the cockpit. Perhaps a bit of a retreat was in order. So far, the natives were doing nothing to suggest they were leaving, so there was nothing to do but wait. Seven didn't wait until he prodded her to slip beneath the helm, and he didn't wait for her imploring look to follow her. At least in sleep- however fitful- they wouldn't be hungry.

 **XXX**

Seven woke first. The ambient noise outside the shuttle was growing louder. What hours before had been speaking voices and song had now become aggressive shouts and chanting. All the hair on the nape of her neck stood on end before she even opened her eyes- not that opening her eyes did her any good besides reassuring herself that there wasn't a native in the cockpit with them. It was just her and Chakotay as it should be.

Beside her, Chakotay's sleeping hand wandered from its place on her stomach around to her waist, pulling her closer to him. A breath sighed past her lips as she allowed herself to turn into his unconscious embrace. He then stretched out, the arm holding her to him tightening. She hummed unapologetically. Even in the heat, the gentle compression felt good somehow.

" _¿Que..?_ " Chakotay murmured, waking to the raising of voices outside their hidey-hole.

"I don't know." she whispered, lifting her head to try and see over him.

Loosening his hold on the blonde beside him, Chakotay turned his body and slid out from beneath the console. The second he crawled into the archway between the cockpit and aft, the noise outside hit its crescendo. Startled, he scooted back, knocking into Seven following behind him. When his movement had no effect on the ululating voices outside, he figured the rise in volume hadn't come because he had been spotted. A few tense moments passed, him braced beside the archway and Seven steadying herself crouched at his side with a hand on his knee. The voices became louder for a heartbeat more before a sharp shrill scream rose over the din.

And then it was quiet.

Seven and Chakotay shared a confused look. It was as if someone had turned off a speaker. There was not one voice- not one baby's cry, not one child's giggle, not one elder's cough. The only sound was the gentle lap of the water against the side of the shuttle, and the soft whistle of a breeze blowing through the scar. Chakotay risked a peek, leaning out just enough to see past the scar. The natives he could see were all standing still, solemnly looking towards the end of the shuttle out of Chakotay's line of sight. Like a movie set on pause, they stood silent and sentinel until as one, they turned back towards the red dirt mesa, and began to walk.

"Can you see?" Seven whispered behind him, the hand on his knee moving to grasp his forearm.

"They're walking." he answered quietly. "Back East."

"Towards the caves?"

"Yeah."

With the surge of confidence that came with the natives perhaps finally leaving, Seven leaned forward and watched alongside him, counting the backs of dark heads as they filed past. There were several stragglers behind the mass of natives. All were men, each with a bow in one hand and an arrow nocked, protecting their tribe from behind as they slowly marched away. Seven could feel the relief flood over her.

"We should sit tight for a while yet." Chakotay turned to her with serious eyes. "To make sure they are good and gone."

"Right." agreed Seven. She'd sit there until nightfall if she had to and be happy for it so long as no natives were near. The quiet rumble of her empty belly was an easy price to pay.

"I'm gonna go look again." He gently shook her hand off his arm, slipping down into the aft on his haunches.

Curious, too, Seven crept down into the aft with him, making a beeline for the edge of the water as it lapped along the side of the shuttle's broken lockers. She cupped her hands in the cool water, but paused before bringing the liquid to her lips. Black silt and particulate settled into the grooves in her palms, outlining the silver webbing. The natives must have stirred it up with their activities. Instead of drinking, she brought it up and splashed it across her face, nearly humming in relief as cold rivulets ran down her neck and into the gapped neckline of her borrowed shirt.

Chakotay crawled to the scar, bracing himself up on it with one hand and slowly leaning forward to see outside. The beaches were empty now but for a thousand footprints upsetting the sand. He leaned up, craning his neck to see towards the hatch.

A startled hiss escaped his lips, alerting Seven before Chakotay had even ducked down, raising up to peek once more with the same outcome. Seven crawled to him. "What is it?"

Chakotay put a finger to his lips. "One out there. Sitting."

' _One?_ ' she mouthed. He gestured for her to look for herself, sliding back enough to let her squeeze between himself and the jagged hole. Tentatively she leaned up, her eyes drinking in and analyzing her surroundings. There was an empty beach, a stretch of trampled grasses. At the end of their shuttle, just outside the reach of the water's edge, a tall pole had been planted. Just beneath the tree trunk turned pole, leaned against its rough side, was another wooden object- rounded and stretching off out of Seven's field of vision. Sat on the other side of the rounded wood was whom Chakotay had seen. The back of someone's dark-haired head lounged on the edge of the wood, one arm tossed out to dangle carelessly over the edge.

Seven ducked back down, her eyes finding Chakotay's. "Just him?"

Chakotay shrugged. "Don't know." He prodded Seven out of the way, looking back out. "Hasn't moved yet."

"Perhaps, as Tom would say, he.. partied too hard." she whispered, moving back to the water, taking her boots off and sliding her bare feet into the cool liquid.

Maybe." Chakotay whispered, smirking at her comment while backing off from the scar. He gestured to the cockpit. "Okay.. we can pack up all that wire.. and when we are packed and ready, we'll rush him."

Seven snorted. "Rush him?"

"If there's just one of them, we can take him." Chakotay explained, glancing back to the scar. "We have the phaser.." When he leaned forward, he could see the little phaser still on the floor from earlier- useless against a horde of natives, but quite effective against just one, solitary guard. "Stun him and run for the woods."

Following his line of sight, Seven saw the discarded phaser near the opps station. It had been especially useful against the native in the cave before. Her confidence boosted by his plan, she nodded, meeting his eyes again. "Okay." When he nodded, she followed him up to the cockpit, quietly creeping after him. In their struggle to be silent, the packing of their bundles of wire took three times as long as it should have. Seven, knowing she didn't want to come back to the shuttle until she absolutely had to, went ahead and rechecked the wiring on the beacon while Chakotay pulled his shirt back on over his head and stacked their haul next to the archway. Afterwards, they milled about in the cockpit, silently looking for any other resource they could glean.

An hour after they had packed everything away found the two sitting opposite each other in the cockpit, each with their own bit of broken shuttle wall to fan themselves. Their bags were stacked at the edge of the water, tied together with wire to keep them from dropping any in their escape.

Chakotay set his piece of shuttle down before using the tail of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his brow before it could roll into his eyes. "Alright." he said softly, taking to his feet, "Ready?" He reached his arm down to her, hand open.

Seven put her own fan down beside her as she took his hand, steeling her resolve with a clench of her jaw. "Ready." she confirmed.

With ease, he pulled her up to stand. "Okay, come on."

The hatch was nowhere near silent- the sound of gears grinding and air being forced out of the valve in the pneumatic hinge was louder than the vacuuming swoosh of displaced water being moved around the heavy hatch door, sloshing up into the shuttle and onto the beach to reattain equilibrium. Chakotay's arm was out the door and pointed towards the direction the native had been before he had room to slip out ahead of Seven. He expected the native to have jumped up and spun around- expected an arrow pointed in his face, a sharp yell to bring back the rest of the tribe or to any stragglers prowling the woods beyond the beach. But the man lay still.

With a steeling breath, Chakotay slunk up out of the water, his eyes boring in the back of the native's dark head. He could see now that the person was resting in a canoe long enough to lay in, the carved vessel leaned against two of the pagoda's support poles. The whole side of the canoe had been decorated with symbols in brown mud that was mirrored on the poles the craft was leaned upon. Stacked around the canoe were dozens of flat grass baskets full of provisions- vegetables and cloth. Chakotay guessed it was for the native, asleep and unaware.

The hatch and water had already gone silent besides the big drops rolling off the end of it. Their escape had been anything but quiet. What a time for a guardian to fall asleep. Still out of their line of sight, he tensed and blew a quick breath through his lips. " _Psst!_ "

"Asleep?" Seven whispered, reaching out and tugging Chakotay's free hand. "We can run!"

The Commander pulled her back to his side, his hand clamping over hers when he realized what the markings were. "Wait." The copper scent hit him square between the eyes. "Blood." he hissed. "Spirits." He staggered forward a step, keeping Seven pushed squarely behind him as he rounding the baskets enough to see the man in the canoe.

Or, what was left of him anyway.

Two bloody, empty eye sockets stared out at him, bloody tears painting a once tanned face red. The beaded vest had been cut open along with the man's chest. His heart- Chakotay guessed it was his heart- rested in the man's lap in a little basket of blood-stained flowers. " _Dios mio.._ "

"What is-" Seven cut her question off with a gasp as she peered around Chakotay's shoulders. A lifetime's worth of seeing the ins and outs of assimilation chambers didn't prepare her for the cold shock that froze her spine and ribcage at the mutilated humaoid before them. The thought that they had been scuttling around inside the shuttle as quietly as possible to not be heard by a dead man made her insides squirm. The shrill scream they had heard before the natives had filed away must have come from this man. They had listened to him being murdered while they were curled up safe and hidden in the shuttle. She turned her head as her stomach rolled.

" _...mierda…_ " Chakotay breathed, tearing his eyes away from the gory scene to look back at the hatch. The same brownish red symbols on the poles of the pergola and the canoe the corpse sat in were drawn on the end of their shuttle. Where the water had touched them as the hatch opened to let them out, the dried blood ran in pink streaks down the shiny metal. " _Esos cabrones.._ "

"What is all this?" Seven asked, her voice still soft as though she was afraid to be loud yet. She toed a basket of bright yellow roots mixed with the same flowers cradling the dead native's heart.

Chakotay turned his head to look down around them. Several baskets were filled with the potatoes they had been subsisting on while others held flowers or bundles of cloth or piles of bloody meat. He curled his lip at the basket of flesh at his feet, guessing it was the intestine of some large animal.. and hoping it wasn't the intestine of the man flayed before them. He chanced another look at the corpse, feeling only a little relieved when he saw that the man's abdominal wall seemed intact.

"Why?" Seven whispered, trying to wrap her head around the scene. She finally released her grip on Chakotay's hand to step towards the other side of the pergola, her eyes cataloguing the contents of the grass baskets on that side.

Survival instinct finally roared to life inside Chakotay, chasing away the cold unease that had frozen him in place. Seven moving away from him snapped him out of the disgusted reverie he was stuck in. "We should take some of this." he said.

Seven's head whipped back around to him, meeting his eyes. "What? What if they come back for it?"

He shook his head. "They're not gonna come back for it."

"How do you know that?"

"Because." he answered, following her over to see what was inside the baskets at her feet. "This is an offering or something. Look at it."

"An offering?" The blonde scowled, reassessing the scene. "So they kill that man and this is supposed to follow him into the afterlife?" she asked. "And you want to disturb it?"

Chakotay lifted a bow and quiver full of white arrows from the baskets at her feet. "He's not using it." he quipped, testing the tension of the bowstring. "Besides.. I think it's part of it. Like it's all an offering. I mean, look at him."

"I don't _want_ to look at him, Chakotay."

He ignored her comment, and the arms she crossed over her chest. "He was dressed differently, and they had him tied up earlier. He isn't- or wasn't- one of them. He's a sacrifice."

"To what?"

The bow was slung over his shoulder with the quiver strap as the commander continued to rifle through the baskets that Seven stubbornly ignored. "I don't know. To the shuttle, maybe?"

"They don't even know what the shuttle is." Seven hissed, watching him pull out a large bundle of colorful cloth and unfold it to reveal a woven blanket. Animals resembling Terran deer and some kind of large brown buffalo creature were embroidered into the crude blanket.

"Exactly." Chakotay said, balling the blanket up and pushing it into Seven's arms. "They might think it is a piece of a god or something. A fallen star?"

"Chakotay-"

"So they leave it offerings hoping that it won't harm them." He picked up another stack of similar blankets and put them on top of the one Seven held. "And since the shuttle is ours.. Seven, we should take this with us. It could be the difference between life and death for us. We need all the supplies we can get our hands on."

Seven sighed, accepting his logic. It didn't make her feel any better about it. She wanted nothing to do with the dangerous natives- and that included the things they left behind. "..We can't carry all of this." she mumbled, glancing around at the potatoes and roots, purposefully keeping her eyes away from the bloody mess in the canoe behind her.

"No, we can't." agreed Chakotay. "But we could put it in that canoe and float it with us like we did our other supplies."

"What?!" Seven's eyes crawled back over the corpse sitting in the bloody canoe. "No!" She shook her head, dropping the blankets back into Chakotay's arms. "No, Chakotay."

"What's wrong?" he asked, half amused and half annoyed at her attitude. Since when did Seven act like this? Where was the logical cool-headed crewman he had gone on this mission with? Had a few nights of real danger bled the aloofness out of her?

"That's _his_ canoe. I don't want to touch it!" The look of confusion that crossed Chakotay's face was comical, but the blonde didn't budge. Instead, she shook her head and turned from him, busying herself with gathering up the baskets with potatoes in them.

"Are you serious right now?" Chakotay mumbled to himself, turning back to the corpse behind him. How was he going to get the man out of the canoe? With a sigh, he began to move the baskets near the canoe away, stacking them haphazardly behind him for Seven to deal with. "Alright, buddy.." he murmured, finally standing over the unfortunate native.

"Are you sure you want to move him?" Seven asked quietly behind him, using some cable to tie two baskets into a clamshell for transporting the potatoes inside.

"No." Chakotay answered honestly. "But how else are we going to get all this stuff home? And don't you think having a canoe would be a good thing? We can get here and back faster. No overnight trek in the woods. Make a quick getaway if we need to."

"A canoe would be.. a plus." Seven said softly. "You're right."

"Yeah." Chakotay didn't feel right, but survival won out. He grabbed the end of the canoe and gave it a yank further up onto the beach, pulling it past the back log supporting it. Without the beam, it was easy for him to turn the small vessel over, effectively dumping the body and the basket with his.. property.. in it out onto the warm sand. He righted the canoe and began to drag it out and around the pergola, past Seven and the rest of the baskets. Knowing it would float off if he put it in the water, he paused and leaned it against the other logs, ready to be filled.

"Do you.. intend to leave him like that?" Seven asked. Laying in the sand face-down, the native was easier to look at. The basket that had been in his lap was now beneath him, the corner sticking out near his ribs, but the gory bits on it still hidden in the sand.

"We don't have a shovel to bury him." Chakotay said.

"No." Seven shook her head, turning her attention back to her packing. "We do not."

Still.. Maybe it was the Indian in him that put the sudden stone in his stomach as he looked at the man laying prone in the sand. There was a part of him that pitied the man- wondered what he had done to end up like this. With an irritated breath forced through his teeth, he rounded the pergola again until he was in front of the man. Before he could talk himself out of it, he grabbed the back of the man's vest and hauled him back up until the corpse was resting against the back pole nearest the hatch. Chakotay grabbed the basket and used the edge of it to fish up the sandy, bloody heart before shoving it back in the man's lap. Before he had time- or the desire- to check his work, he was at the water's edge to wash the blood from his hands.

"Are you alright?" Seven asked, watching him flick the water from his fingertips before rubbing his hands dry on his pants.

"Yeah." he answered, giving the sitting corpse a wide berth. "Let's just get this loaded up." he said, grabbing a bundle of fabric and dropping it into the canoe. "Didn't you say you wanted to take a panel off the wing or something?"

 **XXX**

"Alright, that's all of it." Chakotay said, carrying the last of their bags from the woods to load into the canoe. He glanced back down the beach towards where they had left the shuttle behind. From this angle, they couldn't see the pole that the body was leaned against. Even so, another chill ran down his spine. Seven's earlier words had struck their chord- he could have easily been the one to meet that fate.

"Here." The Commander jumped at Seven's voice, lost in his thoughts long enough to not notice her having approached him. She pressed one of their cooked potatoes into his free hand, the top half already peeled and ready to eat.

"Thanks." Chakotay smiled, his stomach growling. "Where did you put the panel?"

"In your bag in the canoe with the tent." Seven answered, following him to the water's edge, her own potato in hand. She tossed her skins in the water, watching as a school of blue and silver fish was quick to claim them. "Fish." She resisted the urge to dig out the tricorder. All she really wanted in that moment was to put space between herself and the shuttle.

"What? Oh." Chakotay looked down at the clear water. "They look like white bass."

"White bass?"

"A specie on Terra. Tom has a holodeck program.. we went fishing a couple of times. Us and Harry and Roberto. Bee tried it, but she didn't have the patience."

"..oh." Seven frowned, watching the last peel disappear into the gaping mouth of the biggest fish. She wondered briefly if she would have liked fishing. She certainly hadn't enjoyed Captain Proton, but that was so soon after her being severed from the Borg. At that point, she hadn't been able to understand the nuance- or to understand that Tom was just trying to be nice to her- to help her learn how to fit in.

"..Seven?"

Chakotay's hand waved in front of her face, pulling her out of her thoughts. "I apologize." she said, lifting the bags at her feet and putting them in the canoe, hiding her blush. "Did you say something?"

"Nah." He shook his head, keeping his eyebrows from raising by sheer will. He dumped his own load into the canoe, catching a glimpse of her red cheeks. He still liked the color pink on her cheeks. " _Venga, chica._ "

 **XXX**

 **Love it? Hate it? Tell me in a review!**

 **~LM**

 **Translations:**

 **Mierda - shit  
**

 **¿Cuántos? - How many?**

 **Un putaro de gente. ¿Qué quieres decir 'how many'? - A fucking lot of people. What do you mean 'how many'?  
**

 **Mira - Look  
**

 **No sé. - I don't know  
**

 **Dios mio.. - My God..**

 **Esos cabrones.. - Those assholes..  
**


End file.
